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The

CHRISTIAN

DOCTRINE

of GOD

DOGMATICS: Vol. I

Books by
EMIL BRUNNER

Published by The Westminster Press

The Christian Doctrine of God

{Die christliche Lehre von Gott)

Man in Revolt
(Der Mensch im Widerspruch)

The Mediator
{Der Mittler)

The Divine Imperative
{Das Gebot und die Ordnungen)

Revelation and Reason
{Offenbarung und Vernunft)

The Divine-Human Encounter

( Wahrheit als Begegnung)

EMIL BRUNNER

The
CHRISTIAN
DOCTRINE

of GOT)

* DOGMATICS: Vol. I

Translated by
OLIVE WYON

Philadelphia
THE WESTMINSTER PRESS

All rights reserved — no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form without
permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer who wishes to quote
brief passages in connection with a review
in magazine or newspaper.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

In the realm of doctrine the Christian Church has always
recognized a twofold task: one concerning the Church itself;
the other concerning the outside world, the world of doubt and
unbelief. Although, at a time like the present, the conflict with
unbelief and false ideologies may seem the more urgent one, yet
the first task is always fundamental. For how can the Church
do justice to her missionary calling in an un-Christian world if
she is not herself clear about the content of her message? All
down her history the Christian Church has given much thought
to the basis, meaning and content of the message she has
received — and is bound to proclaim; this process of reflection
is what we mean by "dogmatics".

Dogmatics is not the Word of God. God can make His Word
prevail in the world without theology. But at a time when
human thought is so often confused and perverted by fantastic
ideas and theories, spun out of men's own minds, it is evident
that it is almost impossible to preserve the Divine Word with-
out the most passionate intellectual effort to re-think its mean-
ing and its content. The simple Christian may, it is true, under-
stand and preserve God's Word without theology ; but for those
Christians who are involved in the thinking of their own day,
and who, as children of their own day, are deeply influenced by
these currents of thought, an all-inclusive and thorough effort
to re-think what has been "given" to faith is absolutely indis-
pensable. This is particularly true for those whose calling it is
to proclaim this faith to others.

Hence dogmatics serves first of all those who themselves
exercise a teaching-office in the Church, as clergy and mis-
sionaries, evangelists, pastors and catechists. In addition, it
is useful to all those members of the Christian Church who
desire to grapple with the religious problems which their faith
creates in their own minds. Upon the ladder of reflection on
that which is given with the Word of God, dogmatics, as
the science of Christian doctrine, holds pride of place. Hence
it is not "everybody's business", but only that of those
who are capable of, and in need of, a thoroughgoing effort of
thought.

There is no lack of dogmatic works in the Church. But the
theological renaissance of the past twenty years has not pro-
duced any comprehensive work which expresses the spirit of

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

this renewal. The monumental work of Karl Barth, which in
spite of the five weighty volumes which have already appeared,
has not yet covered one-third of the doctrinal material, makes
us wonder — even when we take into account the great industry
and creative powers of the great theologian of Basle — whether
this massive work, in spite of (or on account of) its unusual
length, will be able to do justice to all the claims of a compre-
hensive presentation of Christian doctrine. In any case, there is
room for other attempts.

One who for more than twenty years has been lecturing on
dogmatics in the usual four terms a year, and so has tried
nearly a dozen times to re-cast the doctrinal material as a whole,
does not need to fear the charge of "superficiality", when he
produces the result of this work of so many years as a whole,
having dealt with it hitherto in single monographs — as Christ-
ology, anthropology, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and of
Revelation. Perhaps it is not too much to expect that the
comprehensive presentation may succeed in overcoming and
dispelling prejudices and misunderstandings which have arisen
in the course of the last twenty years, and have led to contro-
versy on points of detail; possibly this general method may
achieve results which could not be reached by the method of
"frontal attack".

Owing to my long co-operation with the (Ecumenical Move-
ment, I am fully aware both of the needs and the hopes of the
World Church. Hence I have been very careful to keep as
closely as possible to the external form of dogmatics — to the
theological tradition common to the Church as a whole. In the
main, therefore, I have tried to follow the order of the Loci
theologici which, from the days of Peter Lombard onwards, has
formed the framework of Christian Dogmatics, and was also in
all essentials adopted by that master of Reformed theology,
Calvin. Over and over again I have proved that this procedure
is fundamentally sound.

In order not to overburden the non-theological reader who is
willing to make the effort to think through theological ques-
tions, all the more technical historical material has been rele-
gated to special appendices ; this has also had the advantage of
enabling me to introduce surveys from the History of Dogma
which will meet the needs of students, and may perhaps some-
times even be useful to scholars. My thanks are due to Herr
Pfarrer R. Rockenbach for the Index. It is my earnest desire
that this work of dogmatics (of which the present volume is the

PREFACE

first of three or four which have already been planned) may
help to preserve the knowledge of the Divine Word, and to
contribute to its expansion in a world which is fainting for lack
of it, and is in such sore spiritual need.

EMIL BRUNNER

ZURICH,

Lent 1946

Vll

CONTENTS

PREFACE .

translator's note

PAGE
V

Chapter

V^ Chapter

Chapter

lO.

Chapter

II.

PROLEGOMENA

THE BASIS AND THE TASK OF DOGMATICS
The Position of Dogmatics ....
The Necessity for Dogmatics
The Basis of Christian Doctrine : Revelation
Revelation as the Word of God .
Doctrine and the Witness of Faith
The Norm of Christian Doctrine
Dogma and Dogmatics ....

Dogmatics as a Science ....

The Contemporary Character of Dogmatics
Faith and Thought in Dogmatics
The Concept and the Task of Dogmatics .

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

3
6

35
43
50

60
67
73

(i) Theology and Dogmatics 89

(2) On the History of Dogmatics 91

(3) The Threefold Root of Dogmatics in the History of Theology 93

(4) Dogmatics and the Science of Religion 96

(5) Apologetics and "Eristics" 98

(6) Missionary Theology loi

(7) Dogma 103

(8) The Authority of Scripture 107

PART I

THE ETERNAL FOUNDATION OF THE DIVINE
SELF-COMMUNICATION

Section One

THE NATURE OF GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES

Chapter 12. The Name of God 117

APPENDIX TO 12; (i) The Name of God in the Bible and in the
History of Theology; (2) The "Natural" Knowledge of God; the
Problem of the Theologia Naturalis 128

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

PAGE

Chapter 13. God, the Lord 137

y/ APPENDIX TO 13; The Philosophical Idea of God in History . . 151

Chapter 14. The Holy 157

APPENDIX TO 14; (i) Transcendence of Essence and of Being,
and the "analogia entis"; (2) The "Intolerance" of God; (iii) The Good

as Holy, and the Good as autonomous 175

Chapter 15. God is Love 183

APPENDIX TO 15; On the History of the Term AGAPE . . . 200

Chapter 16. The Triune God 205

APPENDIX TO 16; (i) On the Place of the Doctrine of the Trinity

and its History; (2) The Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity . . 235

Chapter 17. The Problem of the "Divine Attributes" . . . 241

Chapter 18. God, the Almighty 248

Chapter 19. The Omnipresence and the Omniscience of God . 256

Chapter 20. The Eternity, Unchangingness, Faithfulness, and

Righteousness of God 266

Chapter 21. The Wisdom and the Glory of God .... 282

APPENDIX TO SECTION ONE: On the History of the Doctrine of the

Divine Attributes 293

(i) The Simplicity and Immutability of God .... 293

(2) The Idea of Omnipotence 294

(3) Omnipresence and Omniscience 297

(4) The Righteousness of God 300

Section Two
THE WILL OF GOD

Chapter 22. The Eternal Divine Decrees and the Doctrine of

Election 303

Chapter 23. The Problem of "Double Predestination" . . 321

APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 22 AND 2^ 34O

(i) On the History of the Doctrine of Predestination . . 340

(2) Karl Earth's Doctrine of Election 346

(3) On the Doctrine of Apokatastasis 352

INDEX OF SUBJECTS 355

INDEX OF NAMES . . 357

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 359

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

The present work is an unabridged translation of Professor
Brunner's first volume of his Dogmatics: Die christliche Lehre
von Gott. It was published by the Zwingli-Verlag, Zurich, in
1946.

I have re-arranged the Table of Contents, and have added a
Subject-Index, for the convenience of English-speaking readers.
While I was preparing this translation Dr. Brunner kindly sent
me a list of printer's errors discovered in the first German
edition; at some points, therefore, I have been able to correct
the German text.

For help on particular points I am indebted to the kindness
of my friends: The Rev. C. H. Dodd, M.A., D.D.; the Rev.
H. H. Farmer, M.A., D.D.; and the Rev. F. Hildebrandt, Ph.D.

Olive Wyon.
Cambridge, 1949.

PROLEGOMENA

THE BASIS AND THE TASK OF DOGMATICS

The

CHRISTIAN

DOCTRINE

of GOD

DOGMATICS: Vol. I

CHAPTER I

THE POSITION OF DOGMATICS

The intellectual enterprise which bears the traditional title of
"dogmatics" I takes place within the Christian Church. It is
this that distinguishes it from similar intellectual undertakings,
especially within the sphere of philosophy, as that is usually
understood. Our immediate concern is not to ask whether this
particular undertaking is legitimate, useful, or necessary. The
first thing we have to say about it is that it is closely con-
nected with the existence of the Christian Church, and that it
arises only within this sphere. We study dogmatics as members
of the Church, with the consciousness that we have a com-
mission from the Church, and a service to render to the Church,
due to a compulsion which can only arise within the Church.
[Historically and actually, the Church exists before dogmatics.
The fact that the Christian Faith and the Christian Church
exist, precedes the existence, the possibility, and the necessity
for dogmatics. Thus if dogmatics is anything at all, it is a
function of the Church.

It cannot, however, be taken for granted that there is, or
should be, a science of dogmatics within the Christian Church;
but if we reverse the question, from the standpoint of dog-
matics it is obvious that we would never dream of asking
whether there ought to be a Church, or a Christian Faith, or
whether the Christian Faith and the Christian Church have any
right to exist at all, or whether they are either true or neces-
sary? Where this question does arise — and in days like ours it
must be raised — it is not the duty of dogmatics to give the
answer. This is a question for apologetics or "eristics". But
dogmatics presupposes the Christian Faith and the Christian
Church not only as a fact but as the possibility of its own
existence^ From the standpoint of the Church, however, it is
right to^put the question of the possibility of, and the necessity
for, dogmatics.

But when all this has been said, the "place" of dogmatics
has still only been defined in a very provisional sense. Further,
this definition of its "place" is obliged to start from the fact
that the Christian Church is a Teaching Church. But even as a
Teaching Body the Church precedes dogmatics, both histori-

» See below, pp. 89 ff.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

cally and actually. From its earliest days the Church, the
Christian Community, has been pre-eminently a teaching body;
one of her outstanding characteristics has been "teaching" or
"doctrine".^ As the Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ was Him-
self a Teacher, so also His disciples carry on a teaching ministry.
We cannot think of the Christian Church without teaching, any
more than we can think of a circle without a centre; teaching
and "doctrine" belong to its very nature.

But this does not mean that teaching is the beginning and
the end of the Church ; rather, teaching is one of its functions,
and one of the basic elements of its life. Like the Lord of the
Church Himself, His Apostles did not only teach: they did
other things as well. "And they continued steadfastly in the
Apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and
the prayers. "2 This is the earliest description of the Primitive
Church. Whether the "teaching" is put first intentionally^ or by
accident, we will not as yet enquire; we may, however, guess
that the order is not accidental. For there can be no doubt that
from the very earliest days, and all down the centuries, teaching
has been an outstanding function and expression of the life of
the Church.

Dogmatics is related to this teaching function of the Church ;
its living basis, its possibility, and — as will be shown later on —
its content, all depend upon it; but this teaching of the Church
is not "dogmatics". The Apostles are not systematic theo-
logians, and what they teach is not dogmatics. It was two
hundred years before the Christian Church produced the first
"dogmatics" Thus it is not because there is a science of Chris-
tian dogmatics that we have Christian teaching, but, con-
versely, Christian teaching is the cause of dogmatics. Dogmatics
— to put it so for the moment — is the Science of Christian
teaching or doctrine. But the subject always exists before the
"science" of the subject can be studied. The teaching Church,
and tne teaching of the Church, is the "place" at which dog-
matics arises. Dogmatics is a function of the teaching Church;
speaking generally, it is a service which is rendered for the sake
of the doctrine of the Church.

But the doctrine of the Church, and the teaching Church, do
not merely constitute the presupposition of dogmatics in the
sense that a subject presupposes the science of that subject.
There may be, it is true, a science of Christian faith and of

» The German word Lehre = both "teaching" and "doctrine". (Tr.)
' Acts 2: 42.

THE POSITION OF DOGMATICS

Christian doctrine, for which that general relation between the
subject and its science exists, which we might describe as a
branch of general religious knowledge, namely, as the science of
the Christian religion. It was thus conceived by Schleiermacher
in his Short Exposition^ of the relation between the doctrine of
the Church and dogmatics, although he did not adhere to this
definition in his own work on the Christian Faith. When we
said that the Church is the "place" of dogmatics, we meant that
this kind of academic or intellectual knowledge or research
was only possible within the community of believers. Dogmatics
are only possible or thinkable, not only because the Church and
Christian teaching exist, but also only where they exist. Dog-
matics is itself a function of the Church. Only one who is a
genuine "believer" and, as such, believes in the Church and its
teaching, can render to the Church the service which is implied
in the idea of dogmatics. The presupposition of dogmatics is
not only the existence of the Church and its doctrine, but life
within the Church, and in its doctrine. Dogmatic thinking is
not only thinking about the Faith, it is believing thinking. There
may be various ways of solving the problem of the Theory of
Knowledge which this raises i^ this, in any case, is the claim
which dogmatics makes, without which its effort ceases to be
dogmatics, and it becomes the neutral science of religion. It is
the believing Church itself which, in dogmatics, makes its own
teaching the object of reflection; essentially, dogmatics claims
to be an academic study controlled by the Church.

' Schleiermacher's Werke, I, i, para. 97: "The connected presentation of doc-
trine, as it is accepted ... at a given time, is what we mean by the expression
'dogmatics' or 'dogmatic theology'."

2 Cf. E. Burnier: "La restauration de la theologie biblique et sa signification
epistemologique" , in Bible et theologie, Lausanne, 1943.

CHAPTER 2

THE NECESSITY FOR DOGMATICS

The urgent question for a humanity which despairs of all
truth: "Is there any Truth which one can beheve at all? And,
if so, does Christian doctrine, as such, claim to be truth of this
kind?" lies, as we have already seen, outside the sphere of
dogmatics. The Christian Church deals with this question by
means of an intellectual discipline which is closely related to
dogmatics, yet which must always be strictly distinguished
from it; this study is called "Apologetics", a name which is as
traditional as the term "Dogmatics". Apologetics is the dis-
cussion of questions raised by people outside of, and addressed
to, the Christian Church; therefore at all times it has proved to
be as urgent, and as inevitable, as the Christian study of
doctrine proper, or dogmatics.

The question of the justification for, and the necessity of,
dogmatics, differs from the former question because it arises
within the Church. And yet it is a genuine and not a rhetorical
question; nor is it even merely academic. The fact is, this
question is justified from the standpoint of the "scientific"
theologian. Serious objections have been raised to the whole
undertaking, objections which must be recognized; to ignore
them would simply mean that we had already fallen a prey to
that dogmatic "rigidity", and that over-emphasis on the intel-
lectual aspect of doctrine which is so deplorable.

The first objection concerns the loss of directness, and even
of simplicity of faith, which is necessarily connected with the
process of dogmatic reflection. A person who has hitherto only
encountered the Biblical Gospel in its simplest form, and has
been gripped by it in a direct, personal way, must necessarily
feel appalled, chilled, or repelled by the sight of massive volumes
of dogmatics, and his first acquaintance with the whole appa-
ratus of ideas and of reflection connected with this study of
theology as a science. Instinctively the simple Christian mur-
murs: "But why this immense apparatus of learning? What is
the use of these subtle distinctions and these arid intellectual
definitions? What is the use of this process of 'vivisection' of
our living faith?" When, further, this "simple believer" be-
comes aware of the theological controversies and passionate
dogmatic conflicts which seem inevitable, it is easy to under-

THE NECESSITY FOR DOGMATICS

stand that the simple Christian man or woman turns away
from all this with horror, exclaiming: "I thank Thee, O Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things
from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto
babes!"! jje sees the contradiction between the simple Gospel
of the New Testament and this world of extremely abstract
conceptions, between the living concreteness of the speech of
Jesus and His Apostles, which speaks straight to the hearts of
all who listen aright, and this ruthless analysis, this massive
labour of systematic theology, in which only people of high
intellectual gifts can share, which seems to be possible only at
the cost of losing the freshness and directness of a living ex-
perience. Like a certain French theologian, he says, rightly: "A
Gospel which cannot be put on a postcard cannot be the Gospel
which was preached to the fishermen of the Lake of Galilee!"
From this point of view dogmatics seems to be a perversion of
the Gospel.

The second objection is closely connected with the first. It
is raised by people who feel that the Biblical Gospel calls them
to action. Their faith has awakened them to see and feel the
sufferings of humanity, the terrible need and the burning
questions of their own day, and they feel that "love constrains
them" to give the world all the help they possibly can, both
inwardly and outwardly. This being so, they feel: "Who would
waste time trying to answer such difficult intellectual prob-
lems? Dogmatics is theory, but faith is obedience and fellow-
ship. How can we waste time in speculations about the mys-
teries of the Trinity while there are human beings in trouble —
both of body and soul!"

This direct and non-reflective rejection of dogmatics by the
practical Christian layman is austerely expressed^ by the
philosopher in intellectual terms. Dogmatics, he says, like all
theory, belongs to the "sphere of recollection", of reflection, of
thought which is concerned with ideas; faith arises in the
"reality" of encounter. Between these two there is an im-
passable gulf. The truth which is given to faith is only under-
stood by one who meets the "Other" in action and in suffering,
but it is not understood by the man who seeks truth in the
sphere of solitary thought. Therefore the introduction of the
truth of faith into that intellectual process of reflection, which

' Matt. II : 25.

' Cf. E. Grisebach: Gegenwart; Freiheit und Zucht; Die Schicksalsfrage des
Abendlandes .

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

is SO remote from reality, can do faith no good, indeed, it can
only do harm, because it diverts the Christian believer from his
real duty of active love to God and his neighbour.

There is another equally important objection. It runs rather
like this: "Dogmatics comes from 'dogma'. However you may
define it, still by your precious 'dogma' you want to force us to
accept an objective authority, an impersonal doctrinal author-
ity, inserted between us and the Source of faith, Jesus Christ
Himself; you want to set up a system of doctrinal coercion,
which is in opposition to the freedom of faith. You want to
establish an ecclesiastical heteronomy which restricts the
liberty of the children of God ! You want to repeat the ancient
error, and to perpetuate it, that doctrine is the object of faith
— a doctrine preserved by the Church, on which she bases her
clerical authority. Inevitably, dogmatics leads to ecclesiastical
tyranny, which, more than anything else, obstructs our view of
the Gospel of the New Testament."

Finally, there is a fourth objection, which represents the
views of those who admit the necessity for thinking about the
Gospel, but who regard dogmatics as a perverted form of such
thinking. Those who take this position claim that what the
Church of our day needs is not a continuance of the dogmatic
labours of previous centuries, which, as we know by experience,
divides the Church by its definitions, but an intellectual effort
which, recognizing the peculiar need of our own times, and the
widespread lack of faith at the present day, tries to seek to
win the outsider by answering his questions, and by entering
into a real discussion with him. A dogmatic analysis of ideas
does not make the Gospel more intelligible to the unbeliever,
but less; it does not help him to understand why he ought to
accept the Christian Faith. The true task of the Christian
thinker, however, should be the very opposite — a task which
hitherto has only been undertaken by great men who are
exceptions in the realm of theology, men like Hamann,
Pascal, or Kierkegaard. So long as the Church still uses her
intellectual powers on the old traditional lines, she is neglect-
ing the one and only important and fruitful intellectual task,
which is her real duty.

Faced by these objections, are we to regard the enterprise of
dogmatics, in spite of the weighty tradition behind it, as
unnecessary? Or even if not actually dangerous, as at least a
bypath for the teaching Church?

In the following pages the effort will be made to allow the

THE NECESSITY FOR DOGMATICS

History of the Church itself to give the answer to this ques-
tion. We must, however, begin at this point: namely, that the
Bible itself knows nothing of that process which from time
immemorial the Church has known as "dogmatics". For more
than a thousand years Israel existed as a religious community
without anything like a system of dogma, in the sense, for
instance, in which Calvin uses it in his Institutes — indeed, the
Jewish Church did not even possess a Catechism, and even the
Early Christian Church — that is, the Christian Church at the
time of its highest vitality and purity, did not produce any-
thing of the kind. This fact does make us think. One thing it
does prove, beyond a doubt, namely, that dogmatics does not
belong to the "esse" , but at the most to the "bene esse" of the
Church. For the "esse" of the Church consists only in that
without which she could not possibly exist. But the Church
existed for two hundred years without dogmatics. Thus if
dogmatics is under no circumstances an absolute necessity, is it
perhaps a relative necessity? That is, something which, under
certain circumstances, is necessary. The History of the Church^
gives a clear affirmative answer to this question — a threefold
answer. Dogmatics springs from a threefold source: there are
three urgent necessities for dogmatics which spring from the
life of the Church itself, and cannot be ignored, {a) The first
root of dogmatics is the struggle against false doctrine. The
sinful self-will of man takes the Gospel — at first imperceptibly,
and indeed perhaps unconsciously — and alters the content and
the meaning of the message of Jesus Christ and His Mighty Act
of Redemption, of the Kingdom of God and the destiny of
Man. This process produces "substitute" Gospels, introduces
"foreign bodies" into Christian truth, and distorts the Christian
message: the very words of the Bible are twisted, and given an
alien meaning, and indeed, one which is directly opposed to its
purpose. The Christian Church is in danger of exchanging its
divine treasury of truth for mere human inventions. This
being so, ought not those who know the original Truth feel
called to make a clear distinction between truth and illusion —
between "gold" and "cat-gold" (Yellow mica)? This necessity
of distinguishing between truth and error, and of warning the
members of the Church against false teaching, makes it quite
impossible to adopt the naive attitude which can ignore these
things. Comparison and reflection become necessary, and the
more subtle and refined are the errors, the more urgent does

' Cf. below, pp. 93 ff.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

this become. Where the very words of the Bible have been
twisted to mean something different, it is not sufficient to
appeal to the "words" of Scripture; where whole systems of
alien thought have been "smuggled" into the message of the
Church, it becomes necessary to set the whole on the one side
over against the whole on the other, and to show clearly how
each is built up into a system. It is the perversion of doctrine
which leads to the formation of the ideas and systems of
dogma. It was out of the fight against heresy that the dog-
matics of the Early Church arose ; the dogmatics of the Refor-
mation period arose out of the struggles to purify the message
of the Bible from Roman Catholic errors.

(6) The second source from which dogmatics is derived is
that of catechetical instruction, or preparation for Baptism.
Even the simplest Christian faith contains a doctrinal element.
We have already pointed out that the Church never can, and
never will be, without doctrine. Even the simple, non-theo-
logical teaching of Jesus is full of "theological" content. A
person cannot become a Christian without knowing something
about the Father in Heaven, the forgiveness of sins, Atonement
through the Son of God, and the Work of the Holy Spirit; and
when he "knows" these Biblical phrases he must go further and
grasp their inner meaning. The teaching Church has to become
the Church which instructs catechumens. But the thoughtful
person cannot receive these doctrines without finding that they
raise questions in his mind. The more alert and vigorous is his
thinking, the more urgent and penetrating do his questions
become. The Christian message must mould and penetrate not
only the heart of man, but also his mind, and his processes of
thought. But this can only take place if the Christian Message
is thought out afresh and re-formulated in intellectual terms.
The thoughtful believer is constantly perceiving new depths
and heights in the truth of the Gospel. Thus the Christian
catechetical instruction which was given through the rich
intellectual medium of the Greek world of culture became a
method of theological and dogmatic teaching. The instruction
of educated catechumens developed into Dogmatics.

The third root of dogmatics is that of Biblical exegesis.
Where there is a living Church, a living spiritual life, there men
feel the need to penetrate more deeply into the meaning of the
Bible, to draw water from the richness of its wells of truth, to
enquire into the hidden connections between its main ideas.
Such people are not satisfied with an approximate and pro-

THE NECESSITY FOR DOGMATICS

visional knowledge — they want something exact and per-
manent. But this means that when the great "words" of the
Bible, such as "Sin" or "Grace", are studied, it is not enough
to study them in the particular passage in question : they must
be investigated from the standpoint of Biblical doctrine as a
whole, and this, they feel, they must grasp as a whole. It is not
sufficient, for instance, to know what the Apostle Paul means
by the "righteousness of God" in a particular passage in the
Epistle to the Romans: we want to know what he means by
this expression as a whole, and also how this specifically
Pauline phrase is related to other phrases which, although they
sound different, contain a similar meaning in other Biblical
writers. Then when the Biblical scholar has done his work —
when he has explained the Epistle to the Romans, and has
related it to "Pauline theology" as a whole — then the reader of
the Bible, who wants to learn not only from Paul but from the
whole revelation contained in Scripture, starts a fresh process
of questioning, and it is such questions that the systematic
theologian tries to answer. It is at this point that the "Dic-
tionary of the Bible", or the "loci iheologici", comes into being.

This threefold root is still visible in the titles of the three
standard dogmatic works of the Reformation period. The
struggle against heresy is represented by Zwingli's Commen-
iarius de vera et falsa religione ; the instruction of catechumens
by the Institutio christianae religionis of Calvin — which de-
veloped out of an expanded Catechism; the need for a "Dic-
tionary of the Bible" for the Bible reader, by the first dogmatic
work of Melanchthon, his Loci theologici.

For the sake of the Gospel the Church cannot ignore its duty
to distinguish false doctrine from true; to this end it must
make the effort to express the content of its simple teaching in
more exact and thoughtful terms. The Church must help the
reader of the Bible by giving him a comprehensive explanation
of the chief Biblical terms; Church leaders cannot ignore the
fact that it is their duty to give thoughtful members of the
Christian community a body of instruction which goes further
than the most elementary elements of the Faith, and to answer
their questions. Hence the Church cannot fail to develop her
doctrine in the sense of giving more exact and precise definitions
of ideas ; then, she must show the connexion of these ideas with
the whole body of Christian truth. This process is "Dogmatics".
This is the answer from Church History.

But this historical answer alone is not sufficient; primarily,

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

because it starts uncritically from an historical position which
is not impregnable ; that is, it assumes that the original doctrine
of the Church was clear and uniform.

The New Testament is not a book of doctrine, but it is a
collection of apostolic confessions of faith and historical records
which have been written down in order to awaken and streng-
then faith. But in these believing testimonies to God's revela-
tion in Jesus Christ there is already a good deal of intellectual
and theological reflection — in some more, and in others less.
From this it is possible to construct a "theology of the Apostles"
— as we shall see later on — and this New Testament doctrine
will become the basis of all dogmatic instruction. Now, how-
ever, this process of development — from the relatively non-
reflective, immediate character of the doctrine of the New
Testament, to the highly developed doctrinal system of the
Church, proves to be inevitable, because this "theology of the
Apostles" is not an absolute unity, but is presented in a series
of different types of doctrine, which differ considerably from
one another. In a variety of doctrine the one Christ aLnd the
one Gospel bear witness to the Divine Act of Redemption. The
fact that this "unity" exists within a partly contradictory
multiplicity, evokes critical reflection. It is not the task of the
Church to teach what Matthew, Paul, or John teach, but it is
her duty to proclaim the Word of God; therefore she must
teach the one divine truth in these differing Apostolic doctrines.
If there were an absolutely uniform, and therefore unmis-
takably "apostolic doctrine", or "doctrine of the New Testa-
ment", then perhaps the work of dogmatics might be super-
fluous. But since this is not the case, and since the truth of
revelation must be sought in and behind the unity of the
different testimonies to Christian truth, the work of reflection
upon dogma is indispensable.

Hence a simple reproduction of "the" doctrine of the Bible
is impossible. Every theology or proclamation of the Church
which claims to be able to do this is based upon a fiction; in
actual fact it is accomplished by an unconscious, and unac-
knowledged process of systematization of theology. The teachers
or preachers of the Church who claim for themselves and others
that "they have no deahngs with theology, but that they stick
quite simply to the teaching of the Bible", deceive themselves
and others. Whatever the Church teaches, she teaches on the
basis of a normative decision — even though this decision may
have taken place unconsciously — concerning the nature of

THE NECESSITY FOR DOGMATICS

"sound doctrine". Open and honest consideration of "sound
doctrine" can never end in appealing to any "standard"
doctrine. "Sound doctrine", when more closely examined,
always proves to be a task which is never ended, and it is never
something which exists "ready-made". Even behind the most
primitive forms of Christian teaching, behind the teaching of
Jesus and of the Apostles, "sound doctrine" is always some-
thing which has to be sought. If the New Testament witness to
revelation is the basis and the content of all dogmatics (as
will be shown in the following pages to be the case), then its
necessity has already been proved by the fact that the task of
discovering the unity of sound doctrine behind the different
doctrines of the New Testament is unavoidable. Thus the truth
of revelation and human doctrine do not only diverge in the
sphere of dogmatic reflection, but this contradiction exists
already, even in the simplest Biblical witness to revelation and
faith. Here already it is evident that the divine Truth is a light
which cannot tie received by the human mind without being
refracted. The one truth of Christ is refracted in the manifold
doctrines of the Apostles; but it is the task of the Church —
which has to proclaim the truth of Christ, and thus also has to
teach — to seek continually for the one Light of Truth within
these refractions. Dogmatics is the science which enables the
Church to accomplish this task.

CHAPTER 3

THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE: REVELATION^

The doctrine of the Christian Church, which dogmatics exists
to serve, hke all doctrine, points beyond itself to a concrete
reality; it is doctrine about "Something"; that is, it is the
doctrine which concerns God and His Kingdom, His Nature
and His Will, and His relation to man and to the world. Chris-
tian doctrine, however, is fundamentally different from all
other kinds of doctrine. For the Reality with which Christian
doctrine deals — God — ^by its very nature, is far above all
human doctrinal conceptions. This "Something" with which
Christian doctrine is concerned cannot be "taught" by man,
for "It" transcends all human doctrines; indeed, all human
doctrines are excluded precisely because this Reality is not a
"Something", not even a "concrete reality", since God is
Absolute Subject. By his own knowledge, all that man can
grasp is the world.

iGod, however, is not the world; therefore He stands outside
the circle in which human knowledge and human doctrine —
acquired by man's own effgrts — can move, and with which
they are competent to deaTJ Knowledge of God exists only in so
far as there is a self -disclosure, a self-manifestation of God,
that is, in so far as there is "revelation^There is a doctrine of
God, in the legitimate sense of the words, only in so far as God
Himself imparts it.* The human doctrine of God — which is
undoubtedly the doctrine of the Church— y^s thus only legiti-
mate, and can only claim to be "truth", in so far as the divine
revelation — that which God teaches about Himself — is validly
expressed by it] Thus Christian doctrine not only points away
from itself to its actual "subject", but it points away from itself
to the divine "doctrine", i.e. to that which God Himself mani-
fests and "teaches" about Himself. It is evident that in so
doing not only the origin and content of this divine "teaching"
(or doctrine), but also the manner of "teaching", of the mani-
festation or self-communication, must be of a special kind. The

' This chapter is a condensed summary of the content of my book, Offen-
barung und Vernunft, 1941; its First Part contains a doctrine of Revelation,
which is here presupposed.

' There is a play on words in this paragraph, which is impossible to repro-
duce in English. Lehre = "doctrine" or "teaching"; Lehren = "To teach",
(Tr.)

THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

concept, the "Word of God", does not solve the problem of the
nature of this divine teaching; for when God "speaks", if it is
really He who speaks, something is said which is evidently
quite different from that which men usually call "speaking".^

Thus all Christian doctrine, even in its primitive form in the
New Testament, in this twofold sense, is merely a pointer to
something outside itself; it is the pointer to "Him, Himself",
and it is a pointer to that which He discloses concerning Him-
self, which human speech or teaching "reproduces", or repeats,
or expresses in human language. The Biblical expression for
this twofold character of Christian doctrine as a "pointer" is
called: "Witness". The Apostles, the first teachers of the
Christian community, know themselves to be witnesses to the
divine revelation. The divine revelation is not only the basis
and content of their teaching, but it is its authorization; their
teaching claims to be true and valid because, and in so far as,
the divine teaching itself is accomplished in their teaching. But
what is this divine revelation which constitutes the basis, the
content, and the authority of their teaching? Since the dis-
cussion of this question constitutes the content of another of
my books we must here confine ourselves to a brief account of
the content of that book.

(i) In the New Testament the idea of revelation does not
denote a single entity, but a complex one; there are many
"forms of revelation" ;2 it is only as these are welded into a
unity that they constitute that which lies at the basis of
Christian doctrine, and determine its claim to truth and validity.

In the centre of this New Testament testimony stands the
historical event: Jesus Christ. 3

The fact that "the Word became flesh" is the centre of the
divine manifestation, towards which all the teaching and
witness of the original witnesses is directed. Obviously, this
means that the "Word of God" is not that which we human
beings mean by a "word": He Himself, Jesus Christ, is the
"Word" of God; it is therefore impossible to equate any human
words, any "speech-about-Him" with the divine self-communi-
cation. Jesus Christ Himself is more than all words about
Him; the "W^ord" of God, the decisive self-communication of
God, is a Person, a human being, the man in whom God Him-
self meets us. The fact that He is "here", that He has "come",

' Cf. Offenharung und Vernunft, pp. 24-33.

* Karl Barth also speaks of the "Three Forms of the Word of God", Kirchl.
Dogm. I, I, p. 125. 3 Offenharung und Vernunft, pp. 95-117.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

that we may see and know Him in His action and His suffering,
in His speech and in His Being, as Him in whom God's HoHness
and Mercy stand before us in person, inviting us to Himself,
and giving Himself to us — this is the revelation, the self-
manifestation of God. In Him, through Him, God makes Him-
self known to us. But this unique historical event cannot be
understood as an isolated Fact; it can only be grasped in the
light of a twofold "before", and a fourfold "afterwards".

(2) The witness borne to Jesus Christ attests Him as the One
in whom the promises of the Old Covenant are fulfilled, as the
Messiah whom the Prophets foretold. ^ Jesus Christ wills to be
understood, and indeed must be understood, in connexion with
the preceding and provisional revelation of the Old Covenant
just as, on the other hand, this Old Testament revelation itself
can only be rightly understood as the precursor of the revela-
tion in Jesus Christ. It is precisely this duality, the fact that
the revelation of the Old Testament in its wholeness "intends"
Jesus Christ, and yet that it witnesses to this only in a pre-
paratory and provisional manner, which is the decisive fact. If
anyone identifies the revelation of the Old Covenant with that
of the New, he misses the meaning of the New Testament
witness, as that which distinguishes the two forms of revela-
tion from one another.

The revelation of the Old Testament, for its part, contains a
variety of forms of revelation; but the decisive and standard
one is that of the prophetic Word. God reveals Himself here
through the Word, through speech. This constitutes both the
greatness and the limitation of this revelation — its greatness, in
the fact that because the Word, the speech, stands in a distinc-
tive relation to the mystery of personality and its self-manifes-
tation; its limitation, because no speech, no word, is adequate
to the mystery of God as Person. The provisional nature of this
revelation comes out precisely in the fact that God only "speaks"
in it, but does not yet reveal Himself in Personal Presence.

It is precisely this twofold nature of the relation to the Fact
of Christ that is meant by the expression in the Gospel of John
— a phrase which is both an antithesis and a synthesis — "The
Word became flesh . . . and we beheld His Glory ".2 That of
which the Prophets could only "speak", is now actually here in
person; in itself "speech" is only a provisional and preparatory
revelation.

(3) The revelation in Jesus Christ and the revelation in the

« Offenbarung und Vernunft, pp. 82-97. * John i: 14.

THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

prophetic Word are both historical ; that which took place and
was proclaimed within Israel was a "New Thing" ; so again was
that which took place in Jesus Christ; it was something com-
pletely new. But now, according to the witness of the New, as
well as of the Old Testament, this historical revelation pre-
supposes a pre-historical revelation. ^ The revelation in history
is retrospective in character. It is not addressed to an emptiness
in man but to a false "fullness". It does not point to an ignorant
and therefore innocent being, but to a guilty creature, who is
therefore aware that all is not right with him: in a word, it is
addressed to sinful man.

But sin, as the broken relationship between man and God,
presupposes a relation with God which preceded the breach,
and a knowledge of God which was given with this relation to
God, that is, an original revelation. Whenever we use the word
"sinner" we imply the Original Revelation; to deny the original
revelation means to deny the fact of sin. Thus the Old Testa-
ment begins its account of the Prophetic revelation of the
Covenant in Israel with an " C/r-geschichte" or primal history,
which precedes that of Israel, and the revelation of the Cove-
nant. God has revealed Himself not only to the Hebrew, but to
Man as a whole, to "Adam". The witness of the Primal Revela-
tion is inseparable from the witness of revelation of the Old
Testament; for the Primal revelation precedes history as a
whole, and the history of Israel in particular.

In the New Testament, moreover, it becomes plain why it is
impossible to keep silence about this revelation which precedes
all history, and why it must be taught. It alone makes man a
responsible being — or, to put it more exactly: through it alone
is man responsible for his sin. ^ithout some knowledge of the
will of God there is no sin; for sin means turning away from
God. But how could we turn away from God unless we had
previously been in His presence! How could we despise His
will if we knew nothing of His wiUTlTo understand man as
sinner, therefore, means to understand him from the stand-
point of his original relation to God, and of the original revela-
tion which this presupposes. It is the dialectic of sin, and of
responsibility for sin and in sin, which means both a know-
ledge of God and an ignorance of Him. If we knew nothing how
could we sin ! And yet sin consists precisely in the fact that this
knowledge has been lost, that the knowledge of the True God
has degenerated into superstition and idolatry.

' Offenbarung und Vernunfi, pp. 59-81.
17

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Apart from revelation there would be no insane idolatry,
and no sin.'' But the fact that the revelation of God is turned
into the insanity of idolatry, constitutes sin. This is the teaching
of the Bible, and all down the ages this is what the Church has
taught. Without this revelation which precedes history, the
historical revelation is not intelligible. And yet the real nature
of this "pre-historical" revelation can only be understood from
the standpoint of this historical revelation; for sinful man no
longer understands it, although the fact that he is a sinner is
certainly based upon this fact.

(4) The revelation in the historical Fact of Jesus Christ does
not only contain this twofold presupposition; it is also neces-
sarily connected with a manifold form of revelation which
comes after it. As an historical revelation to us who are not
contemporaries of Jesus, but who are separated from Him by
the history of more than nineteen hundred years, it is only
accessible to us through the testimony of the first teachers and
witnesses. The revelation of Christ comes to us in the words of
the Apostles,' in the New Testament. Their witness — in accor-
dance with the fact that in Jesus the Word became flesh —
contains two elements: the record which bears witness, and
the teaching which confirms it.

To us, who have not seen Him in the flesh, and as the Risen
Lord, He does not come in the same form as He came to those
who saw Him when He met them as their Risen, Living Lord.
And yet He comes to us as the Same, and He is truly present
to us. To us also He reveals Himself ; but He reveals Himself to
us through the revelation of the apostolic testimony in their
narrative and their teaching concerning Him, the Christ. When
the eye-witnesses were no longer in this earthly life, the Church
was so conscious of the revelatory power of the Apostles' Word
that she called it the "Word of God", pure and simple.

This phrase, however, may give rise to a serious misunder-
standing— a misunderstanding which throws the Christian
Church back to the level of the revelation of the Old Testa-
ment, namely, that God's revelation is identical with a human
"word" about God, whereas the revelation of Christ fulfils the
Old Testament revelation, and leaves it behind, in the very
fact that "the Word became Flesh". This designation of the
New Testament as the "Word of God" is correct, however, in
so far as it recognizes and emphasizes in it a standard form of

' Cf. Luther, W. A., p. 14, p. 588. Nisi diviniiatis notitiam habuissent, non
potuissent earn tribuere idolis. * Offenbarung und Vernunft, pp. 117-34.

THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

revelation which cannot be severed from the Christian revela-
tion.

(5) The New Testament testimony to Jesus the Christ does
not, however, reach us apart from the mediation of the teaching
Church. I Only those who take an unthinking Fundamentalist
view can fall into the error of imagining that we are here
directly confronted by the witness of the Apostles — is it not
indeed only through the medium of the Church that we possess
the New Testament, the writings of the Apostles, who collected
them, preserved them, copied them again and again, had them
printed, translated, and proclaimed to us? The community of
believers itself, however, does not live first of all on the Bible —
the Christian religion is not the religion of a Book — but on the
living word of our contemporaries M^ho can testify to us them-
selves that Christ is the Living and Present Lord, Praedicatio
verbi divini est verhum divinum — this daring phrase of Bul-
linger's is not exaggerated if it is applied to the meaning of the
Church's message, to that which ought to happen, which, by
the grace of God, continually does happen. Thus the message of
the Church — which is in living union with Christ — is also a
form of revelation. The teaching of the Church about revela-
tion is itself the bearer of the revelation.

(6) In all these forms revelation is understood as something
objective, as something which confronts us, something outside
ourselves. But this is a very improper and inexact way of
speaking; for revelation is certainly not a "Something", a
"thing"; but it is a process, an event, and indeed an event
which happens to us and in us. Neither the prophetic Word of
the Old Testament, nor Jesus Christ, nor the witness of the
Apostles, nor of the preachers of the Church who proclaim
Him, "is" the revelation; the reality of the revelation cul-
minates in the "subject" who receives it. Indeed, it is quite
possible that none of these forms of revelation may become
revelation to us. If there is no faith, then the revelation has not
been consummated: it has not actually happened, so to speak,
but it is only at the first stage. All objective forms of revelation
need the "subject" in whom they become revelation. The Bible
itself calls this inward process "revelation".^ It was a new
particular intervention of God which opened the eyes of Peter
to the Mystery of the Messiah, so that he could then confess
Him as the Son of the Living God. 3 Again, it was the same

' Offenharung und Vernunft, pp. 134-61.

» Ibid., pp. 161-80. 3 Matt. 16: 16.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

intervention of God which happened to Paul when "it pleased
God to reveal His Son" in him." And the same process of
revelation takes place wherever Christ manifests Himself to a
human being as the living Lord and is received in faith. Our
spiritual forefathers used to call this the "tesiimonium spiritus
sancti" ; but we ourselves, in accordance with the Scriptures,
will not deny the title of "revelation" to this "testimonium
spiritus internum".

(7) We have not yet said, however, all that must be said if
the word "revelation" is to have its full weight. As the Prophet
of the Old Testament knew that the "Word" which he pro-
claimed was not yet the final revelation, and therefore looked
forward into the future, where the fulfilment still had to take
place, so we also look beyond the "Word made flesh" to a
future form of revelation, when we shall no longer merely
"believe", but we shall "see", face to face;' indeed, this future
revelation, which is taken for granted in the New Testament,
is frequently described with great emphasis by the word
"revelation" aTTOKaXviftLs.

This word aTTOKaXvifsLs is a synonym for the Parousia, for
the perfected revelation at the end of the ages. 3 How, indeed,
could it be otherwise! The very fact of the Incarnation of the
Word in Jesus Christ proclaims that revelation means the
fullness of the Presence of God with us, and therefore, that we
are with Him. Revelation is, it is true, never the mere com-
munication of knowledge, but it is a life-giving and a life-
renewing communion. But so long as we are "in the body of
this death", this revelation is always incomplete; thus the
meaning of revelation is only fully achieved where all that
separates has been removed, and where the fullness of the
Presence has been realized. From this final form of revelation
alone do we fully understand the meaning of each form of
revelation.

Above all, from this standpoint we also understand that in
all the various forms of revelation4 there is one meaning: Em-
manuel, God with us. It is the same Son of God who in Jesus
Christ became man, whom the Prophets discerned dimly from
afar; He is the same in whose image man has been created, and
in whom lies both the meaning and the foundation of the
Creation of the world. It is He who constitutes the secret or

I Gal. i: 15. * I Cor. 13: 12.

3 Cf. Romans 2:5:1 Cor. i: 7; 2 Thess. i: 7.

4 Offenbarung und Vernunft, pp. 181-89.

THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

manifest centre of all the testimony of Scripture ; He it is whom
the Word of the Church has to proclaim and to teach, whom the
Holy Spirit attests in the heart of the believer, and through
whom the "new man" is created. It is also for that complete
revelation at the end of the age that the Church waits, in whom
the "faithful" will see God "face to face".

We need to see both this unity and this multiplicity of the
forms of revelation in their variety and their distinctive char-
acter. In their unity they are "the revelation"; none of these
links in the chain can be dispensed with, none may be neglected
or ignored at the expense of another. It is important to know
two things: first, that from the very beginning God has revealed
Himself in His Creation, but that we can only know what this
means through His revelation in Jesus Christ; and to know
that we men, from the very beginning, have been created in
and for this Image of God, and that no sin of ours can destroy
this original destiny of human nature. Secondly, it is equally
important to realize that it is only in Jesus Christ that we
know our original destiny, and that it is only through Him
that this "Image" is realized in us: in our present state, imper-
fectly, but in the age to come, in its full perfection.

CHAPTER 4

REVELATION AS THE WORD OF GOD

The presupposition of all valid speech or teaching of the Church
about God is the self-revelation of God. The previous chapter
— which gathers up in brief compass the results of a former
detailed study — has dealt with this subject. But there is still
a final step to be taken: the question still remains: How can
human doctrine spring from divine revelation? We have seen,
it is true, how rich and varied is the drama of historical events
to which the Christian Church points when she speaks of
"revelation". But this does not establish a relation between it
and valid speech about God. The decisive middle term is still
absent, that is, the fact that God Himself speaks — the Word of
God. I

The task would be much easier if we could confine our investi-
gations to the Old Testament. For there the standard form of
revelation is the fact that "God speaks". It is true that even then
the relation could not be established as simply as in orthodox
theology, whether Catholic or Protestant, where the human
doctrine of God is based upon the assumption that revelation is
a divine doctrine, a doctrine revealed, that is, by God Himself;
thus where the revelation itself already bears the stamp of a
formulated doctrine, and even of the fixed word of Scripture.
In the Old Testament, it is true, there can be no question of
such a point of view. Revelation is not only that Word of God
which is communicated through the "word" of the prophets,
but it is at the same time an action of God in History, an Act of
God, which cannot be ranged under the heading of the "Word"
or the "Speech" of God.^ Yet it is possible to say this: In
the prophetic revelation the revelation of the Old Covenant
attains its highest point ; the prophetic teaching is the standard
and characteristic form of this revelation. From this standpoint
it would be easy to find a point of transition to the teaching
task of the Church; does not the form of the revelation itself
already contain the decisive pre-condition for valid human
teaching, namely: that God Himself actually speaks, using
human words, in formulated sentences, which, like other
sentences, are formed of intelligible words ? Thus here the Word

• Cf. the excellent article on the word Aoyot; in the Theol. Worterbuch z. N.T.
- Cf. Grether, Nawe iind Wort Gottes im A.T., pp. 127 ff.

REVELATION AS THE WORD OF GOD

of God is present in the form of revealed human words, not
behind them — which human words merely seek to express, just
as a poet tries to express in words what an impression of Nature
or of a musical work of art "says" to him — but in direct identity,
in the complete equation of the human word with the "Word
of God". There is no reason to doubt that the Prophet, who was
conscious that God had "put His words into his mouth",
combined this idea with the conception of the "Word of God",
and regarded himself as a wholly passive instrument of the
Divine revelation. ^

Between us and the Old Testament, however, there stands
a new form of revelation, the fulfilment of all that was only
promised in the Old Testament, and the actual content of the
divine revelation proclaimed by the Apostles and the Church:
Jesus Christ Himself. Thus this "revelation" is not a "Word"
but a Person — a human life fully visible within history, a human
destiny so like, and so unlike, every other: Jesus of Nazareth
the Rabbi, the wonder-worker, the Friend of publicans and
sinners, and the Crucified and Risen Lord, now exalted to the
Right Hand of God. Whatever He may be — so much is plain :
He is not a "Word"; He is not "speech", or a summary of
sentences like the prophetic utterances; and it is this very fact
which is joyfully proclaimed: that for this very reason, just
because He is quite different from a speech, namely, God Him-
self present, acting in His own Person, that He is the con-
summation of the revelation of God. For what the prophets
could "only" say, towards which their word could "only"
point, as something which was yet to come, a Perfection yet to
be realized in the future, has now happened: Emmanuel, God
with us. God Himself, not only a Word about Him, is now here.
It is this that characterizes the New Age as contrasted with the
past as a whole, even as contrasted with the revelation in the
Old Covenant: the fact that He Himself is now here; He
Himself is speaking, but for that very reason He is not merely
the One who speaks, He is also the One who acts. That is why
the Kingdom of God has now dawned; hence now the old is
over and past, even the Old Covenant with all the forms of
revelation proper to it. These are all severed from the new
revelation, towards which they all pointed as heralds, as a light
which shone out into the future, pointing towards the Coming
One, Jesus Christ, in whom God Himself is present, speaking
and acting.

' Cf. Eichrodt, Theol. des A.T., II, pp. 21 fif.
23

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

This profound change is the content of the Prologue to the
Fourth Gospel, This new revelation, which is the subject of the
whole New Testament message, is presented in the Johannine
Prologue as a theme expressed as the transition from the Word
to the Person: "The Word became flesh." This means: He who
could only be foretold previously in human language through
the speech of the Prophets, is now present "in His own Person".
What here takes place is not an hypostatization of the Word ; on
the contrary, the hypostatization of the Word, like that which
took place in the work of Philo, the Jewish-Hellenistic thinker
and writer, or the hypostatization of the Torah, of the Word
of the Law or of the Scriptures, as became the custom in
Rabbinic Judaism,'' has now become impossible; it has been
eliminated. That which was previously "Word" has now
revealed itself in such a way that henceforth it has become
evident that the "Word-about-Him" is different from Him,
Himself, and that the real revelation is the fact that He Himself
is here present. The message of the Johannine Prologue,
therefore, is this: that He Himself, Jesus, the Son of God, is the
principle of the Creation, of which the Old Testament could
only say: "God spoke". It is Jesus whom the Scripture, and
indeed all the Prophets, mean. He, Jesus, is the content of
all previous speech, which took place under God's orders.
Previously — so we may paraphrase the meaning of the Prologue
— the Revelation of God assumed the form of the Word, of
speech; now, however, its form is no longer this merely pro-
visional, indirect form — a "pointer" to something beyond, but
now the form of revelation is Himself, the One who speaks
and acts in His own Person. Therefore the predicate "Logos",
"Word", has become an inaccurate expression. For a Person is
not a spoken word, but One who speaks, who, however, for
that very reason is not merely One who speaks, but One who
acts, a living, active "Subject". A Word is not a Subject, but
it is the function of a subject. Jesus, however, is not a "function"
but a "subject". And He Himself, not His speech, is the revela-
tion proper, even though His speaking is part of Himself, as
well as His action and His suffering. Hence the Johannine
Prologue — in order to make this situation quite plain — has set
alongside of the idea of the "Logos" the ideas of "Light" and
"Life", The one concept of "Word" cannot now express
everything that revelation means in the Old Testament. Behold!
more than the "Word" is here — God Himself is here! The

• Cf. Theol. Worterbuch. IV, p. 138.
24

REVELATION AS THE WORD OF GOD

prophetic "Word" is full of force and power — "Is not my
Word like as a fire?" saith the Lord, "and like a hammer that
breaketh the rock in pieces ?"i But here the atmosphere is
different. "Light" and "Life" are not characteristics of the
"Word", but they are equally valid terms to describe Jesus
Christ Himself in Person, as the self -manifestation of God.

The opening verses of the First Epistle of John show that
this is the meaning; obviously, here the Logos is deliberately
paraphrased in order that it may become clear that this is more
than "Word": not only: "That which we have heard", but — ■
"that which we have seen . . . and . . . beheld, . . . and . . .
handled. "2 The correlation of "Word" and "hearing" which
the spoken word clearly implies, is no longer the only meaning ;
it is expanded and enriched by equally valid terms: to see, to
behold, to touch, and to handle. Hence the Logos is no longer
only the Word about life, as it was with the Prophets, but it is
"the Word of Life", 3 which may also be described as the
"Bread of life"4 or the "Light of life". 5

This event which John has summed up in such a pregnant
phrase is in harmony with the whole outlook of the New
Testament. Henceforth revelation is no longer a "Word",
but Himself; it is true, He may also be called the "Word";^
it is not necessary, however, to apply this term to Him, who
cannot be fully expressed in any of these conceptions, because
He, as Person, is beyond and above all intellectual concepts.
Certainly this does not mean that the idea of the "Word of
God" has disappeared from the witness of revelation. There is
still an excellent relation between the revelation and the
spoken word ; but with the Incarnation of the Word the meaning
of the formula, the "Word of God", has been drastically altered.
The spoken word is now no longer the revelation itself, or,
to put it more exactly, it is no longer directly "revelation",
but only indirectly. The spoken word is an indirect revelation
when it bears witness to the real revelation: Jesus Christ, the
personal self-manifestation of God, Emmanuel. The spoken
word, the "word" in the actual sense of speech, "saying some-
thing in words", has thus been relegated to a secondary position,
because the first place is now occupied by Him to whom the
Old Testament prophetic Word pointed as the Coming One.
Hence the meaning of the Old Testament revelation has now
— and only now — been fulfilled, and its fulfilment is the Man

' Jer. 23: 29. 2 I John 1:1. 3 i John i: i.

4 John 6: 48. 5 John 8: 12. * Rev. 19: 13.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

in whom God Himself is present: speaking, acting, suffering,
reigning.

Further, this also implies that man's "reaction" to this
revelation can no longer be simply described by the word
"hearing". The relation has now become as personal as the
revelation is personal. We are here no longer concerned with a
relationship in "word", but with a personal relation: no longer
are we content to "believe it" , but our one concern is to come
to Him, to trust Him, to be united to Him, to surrender to
Him. Revelation and faith now mean a personal encounter,
personal communion. He has come, in order that He may be
with us, and that we may be with Him;^ He has given Himself
for us, that we may have a share in Him.^ Whatever the
significance of the "word", of "speech", may be in this happen-
ing, and its significance is great and indispensable — one thing is
clear : it has still been relegated to the second place, it is a servant
of the revelation; it is not the revelation itself. The "Word"
— in the sense of speech or doctrine or preaching — is witness
to Him, pointing to Him, the story of Him, of what He has
done, and teaching about what He is. Our service to Him, to
whom both act and speech are subject, is gathered up into this
twofold activity of the historical recording of events and the
doctrine which interprets their meaning.

It is therefore no accident that the Johannine Gospel in
particular, which begins with the concept of the Logos, and
thus describes Jesus directly as the Word of God, only uses this
term in the Prologue, and nowhere else in the Gospel. The use
of the idea of the Logos, therefore, does not mean that Jesus
is the Word, but that the "Word" is Jesus. All that was
called the "Word" in the Old Testament, all that was indicated
in the Old Testament narrative of the Creation by the words
"and God said", all that had to be said in words in the Old
Testament, is now here Himself in Person, no longer merely in
speech about Him. It is for this reason that the One whom
men describe as the Logos, may also be described in other terms :
Light, Life, and above all: Son of God.

In order to make it clear that this change has taken place,
henceforth the expression "Logos, Word of God" will no
longer be used. The way in which the Early Church spoke of
the Logos, and in which the orthodox theological tradition
still does so, betrays an alien influence, not in accordance with
the testimony of the Bible, a train of thought which has been

' Matt. i8: 20; 28: 20. ^ Cf. John 15: 4; 17: 23.

REVELATION AS THE WORD OF GOD

introduced into Christian thought by Greek philosophy from
the thought-world of speculation concerning the Logos.

Certainly we can say — and indeed we shall have to say, as
we shall see — that in Jesus Christ God "speaks" with us. But
this expression is no longer, as in the case of the prophetic
Word, an adequate expression; it has become inaccurate. For
a Person is certainly not a speech, in spite of the fact that
without speaking he can "say" a good deal to us through his
life and his work. In the fact that the "Word became flesh",
God's way of "speaking" has changed from the literal
"speaking" (through the Prophets); it has become a more
figurative way of "speaking". The vessel "speech" could no
longer contain the content of this new form of divine revelation.
The prophetic "Word" — however fully it may be understood
as God speaking — is still "only speaking" about Him who is
Himself not a "speech" but a Being, a personal Being, and
indeed a Person whose whole aim it is to come to us as the One
of whom the Prophets spoke. As in the Old Covenant the Word
of Jahweh "came" to the Prophets, so now Jesus has "Qome",
As the Prophets used to say: "Thus saith the Lord", so Jesus
says: "But I say unto you." The fact that He Himself takes
the place of the spoken word is precisely the category which
distinguishes the Old Testament revelation — the revelation
through speech — from the New Testament revelation, the
revelation in Christ.

Should someone object, and say, on the contrary, that Jesus
Christ alone is the "Word of God" in the full sense of the word,
he is really saying what I am saying here, only he is saying it
on the basis of a misunderstanding. For he has not realized that
when we say that Jesus is the real Word of God we alter the
simple meaning of the notion "word", since a person is different
from a spoken word. If I describe Jesus as the "real Word"
I render the formula, the "Word of God", inaccurate; it then
becomes symbolic language, just as it would be were I to say
that the music of Bach "says" more to me than any poem.

Thus we really mean the same thing : but to avoid confusion
it is important to be quite clear on this point : that the more we
emphasize the fact that God's speaking alone is real speech,
that Jesus Christ alone is the real Word of God, the more we
are moving away from the direct use of the idea, the "W^ord of
God", to the indirect. The Word which has been formulated
in human speech is now only revelation in an indirect sense;
it is revelation as witness to Him.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

This truth is of decisive importance for theology; only by
its means will it be possible to repair the damage inflicted on
Western theology by the Logos theologians, who infected
Christian thought with their sterile intellectualism. This over-
emphasis upon the intellectual aspect of the Faith came out
in two facts — both of them well known — but, as it seems to
me — never fully understood. The first of these facts was the
equation of the "Word" of the Bible with the "Word of God";
this produced the doctrine of Verbal Inspiration, with all its
disastrous results; the second fact was the view of revelation
as "revealed doctrine". Behind both these facts there lies a
misunderstanding of the idea of the Logos as expressed in the
Prologue to the Fourth Gospel. But these two facts simply
mean that the view of revelation given in the New Testament
was abandoned in favour of an Old Testament idea of revela-
tion— with a strongly rational element — thus, that the Divine
revelation is a spoken Word of God, and even a doctrine. It is
obvious that once this had been accepted, the idea of faith,
and the understanding of the Christian life as a whole, of what
it means to be a Christian, was coloured by the same misunder-
standing. Here, however, we cannot deal with this problem any
further. Our immediate question is: What is the basis upon
which the Church can carry on its teaching work ?

Orthodoxy, which understands revelation as revealed doc-
trine, finds it very easy to establish correct doctrine. All one
has to do is to formulate the revealed doctrine — in a formal
sense — for purposes of instruction, in a systematic or cate-
chetical form. The doctrine is already there, in the revelation.
We find it impossible to take this enviable short-cut; but we
are also aware at what a price this short-cut was purchased,
what terrible consequences sprang from it, and indeed, that
these consequences are still bearing their own fruit. Hence we
know that we shall not have to regret choosing the longer way.
Another "short-cut", which is not warranted, exists, where
the question is put: "How can revelation, which is not
doctrine, become doctrine?" and is answered by pointing to the
fact of the testimony to the revelation, without which indeed
Jesus would not be present for us at all. Up to a point, of
course, this observation is correct, and in the next chapter we
shall be dealing with the question of this testimony. But:
although the connexion between the testimony of Christ and
Jesus Christ Himself is very close, they are not identical. Jesus
is not the testimony, but He is the revelation. The question

REVELATION AS THE WORD OF GOD

should, therefore, be thus expressed: How docs legitimate
human speech about Jesus, about God, arise out of the revela-
tion, which is Jesus Christ Himself, and therefore is not a
spoken word ? Is there a point of identity between the revelation
of the Person and the word in human speech ?

Actually this point of identity does exist ; it is the witness of
the Holy Spirit. We are now speaking not of the human witness
to Jesus Christ, but of the Divine testimony. Before there can
be a legitimate human witness, speech about God, genuine,
valid testimony to Jesus Christ, there must be a Divine testi-
mony to Him, which makes use of human forms of thought
and speech — and it is precisely this that is meant by the witness
of the Holy Spirit "in" the human spirit. By this we do not
mean, first of all, what our fathers used to call the "testimonium
spiritus sancti internum" ; for this refers to a situation which
we cannot yet presuppose, but which is indeed the result of
that of which we are now speaking. For the "testimonium
spiritus sancti" means the understanding of the Word of
Scripture, of the Apostolic testimony which has already become
a human message under the guidance and illumination of the
Holy Spirit. Here, however, our question is: How did this
"understanding" arise? The Apostles themselves give us the
answer: the Spirit of God testified in their hearts that Jesus is
the Christ,

This was what took place at Caesarea Philippi — perhaps for
the first time — when Jesus for the first time was confessed as
the Messiah and the Son of God: "Flesh and blood hath not
revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. "'
This took place because "it was the good pleasure of God . . .
to reveal His Son in me"^ — as Paul explains to the Galatians.

The revelation in Christ is not completed with the Life,
Death, and Resurrection of Jesus : it only attains its goal when
it becomes actually manifest; that is, when a man or woman
knows Jesus to be the Christ. Revelation is not a starkly
objective process, but a transitive one: God makes Himself
known to someone. This revealing action of God is a twofold
stooping to man: historically objective, in the Incarnation of
the Son, and inwardly subjective, in the witness borne to the
Son through the Spirit in the heart of man — first of all, in that
of the Apostles. God stoops down to us, in that He who was
in "divine form"3 took on Himself human form; and God
stoops down to us when He Himself speaks to us in human

• Matt. i6: 17. ^ Gal. i: 15-16. ' Phil. 2: 6.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

speech, in the witness of His Spirit, who bears witness to the
Son. I

We do not usually pay enough attention to the fact that the
expression "in us", "in the heart" is a parabolic expression.
This localizing "in" means, when its parabolic dress is removed:
"in the form of human inwardness" or "in the form of the human
spirit". Here there are two points to note: The Spirit bears
witness to our Spirit — that means: He has not become human
spirit; and it means: in that He bears witness. He has taken on
Himself the manner of existence and the form of action of
human spirit-activity. This is the meaning — from the point of
view of the Theory of Knowledge — of the New Testament
witness of the Holy Spirit: identification of the divine spirit
with the human spirit, and at the same time the fact that the
Spirit of God and the human spirit confront one another.^
Nowhere does this situation become clearer than where Paul
repeats the most inward, the most central experience of faith
of the Christian community — in the cry of "Abba", which is
sometimes regarded as the cry of the spirit, and sometimes as
the witness of the heart illuminated by the Spirit. 3 Thus "The
Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are
children of God";4 so the witness is both the witness of the
Holy Spirit and the witness of the believing heart. The same
may be said of the confession of Jesus as Lord, which is men-
tioned in connexion with the gifts of the Spirit. 5 In such central
acts of "knowing", in faith, man experiences the working of
the Holy Spirit as a real utterance of God in language and
thought familiar to mankind. Only in this Word of the Holy
Spirit does the Divine revelation in Jesus Christ become the
real, actual word of God to man, in which the parabolic term
of the historical revelation, Deus dixit, becomes Deus dicit,
which is to be taken literally.

Now there are three points to note: First, even as the Word
of the Spirit "in" a human being, the witness of the Spirit to
Jesus Christ does not cease to be "over against" him. "The
Spirit beareth witness to our spirit." That identification may
take place ; but man does not possess the power to achieve this
identification. The witness of the Spirit thus can be rightly
received by the human spirit, so that the "echo" corresponds
to the Word, whose echo it is; but it is also possible that this
identity will not take place : the human spirit may, more or less,

' John 16: 14. ■>■ I Cor. 2: 16 fif. 3 Gal. 4: 6; Rom. 8; 15.

4 Rom. 8: 16. 5 i Cor. 12: 3.

REVELATION AS THE WORD OF GOD

fail to receive the witness of the divine Spirit. We cannot find
an unambiguous criterion for the one or for the other. Thus the
apostolic testimony to Christ has, it is true, its basis in inspira-
tion; but it nowhere claims, eo ipso, to be inspired, either
because it is apostolic testimony, or in the whole range and
detail of its formulated doctrine.

This first point is very closely connected with the other two
points. The second is the fact from which we started: that the
real revelation is Jesus Christ, and that the witness of the
Spirit points to Him, and to Him only. Functionally, therefore,
the witness of the Spirit is subordinated to the revelation in
Christ. As the Son is subject to the Father, so the Spirit in His
testimony is subject to the Son. As the Son has been sent in
order that the Father may be glorified, so the Spirit is sent in
order that the Son may be known and glorified as the Son of
God. I The witness to the Son constitutes the genuineness, and
thus the validity of the witness of the Spirit. And the testimony
to the Son constitutes its inexhaustible content. It has been said,
it is true, that "The Spirit . . , shall guide you into all the
truth" ;- but this future is a Future Imperfect, it never becomes
a Future Perfect; this process of witnessing, this teaching (of
the Spirit) is never ended, never finished. From the human
standpoint the Spirit retains the right to teach mankind more
and more clearly, never, however, establishing once for all a
definitive doctrine, "dogma" pure and simple.

Then comes the third point: that the witness of the Spirit
is not the whole work of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not only
the One who witnesses and speaks. He is also the God who
pours out vitality and creates new life. It is true that from this
point of view His activity is just as impenetrable and myste-
rious as the process of procreation in the natural sense
is impenetrable and mysterious: "arcana spiritus efficicia"
(Calvin). 3 This is in accordance with the fact (which has already
been mentioned) that Christ Himself is not only the Logos, but
is also "Life" and "Light"; thus that even His work in the
believing human being consists not only in the understanding
of the Word, in the believing act of perception, but beyond that
in happenings which lie beyond the range of clear knowledge,
and indeed even beyond the range of human consciousness.
At all these three points the new element in the New Testament
revelation, contrasted with the revelation of the Old Testament,
becomes evident. The idea which lies behind the theory of

' John i6: 14. » John 16: 13, 3 Institutio, III, i, i.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Verbal Inspiration corresponds to some extent with the Old
Testament, prophetic, level of revelation; but it is not in any
way in harmony with the New Testament stage of revelation,
and precisely for this reason: that, unlike the revelation of the
Old Testament, the New Testament revelation is not to be
understood simply and solely as the revelation in the "Word".
As the Person of Jesus is more than a Word, so the working of
the Holy Spirit is more than merely a witness, in spite of the
fact that the witness through which, and in which, Christ
becomes to us the Word of God, is the Centre of everything.
But for this very reason, because neither Jesus Christ nor the
working of the Spirit of God who bears witness to Him is
adequately defined as "letting the Word of God speak" — so
also the testimony to Jesus Christ borne by human speech is
never simply the same as the "Word" of God: hence the
idea of a Verbal Inspiration of divinely revealed doctrine is
entirely inadequate as a definition of the New Testament
revelation.

In contrast to the Prophets, therefore, the Apostles do not
assert that their teaching activity — all that they say and write
— is dictated by the Holy Spirit, but they let us see, quite
naturally and without self-consciousness, into the human and
psychological process of their apostolic testimony. They know
that all that they teach can never exhaust the revelation which
God has given in Jesus Christ : that their words, therefore, are
only continually renewed attempts to say "it". Hence the
freedom with which, without trying to construct a doctrinal
"standard", they place one formulation alongside another, and
struggle unceasingly to find better forms of expression, and to
formulate them as well as they possibly can.

Now for my last point : where the knowledge of Jesus Christ
given through the Holy Spirit is concerned, in the very nature
of the case there is no difference between the Apostles and the
members of the Christian Church, thus also there is none
between the Apostles and the Christians of later generations. If
it is really true that every Christian is to have the Holy Spirit,
indeed that he who "hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of His", I there can be no difference. To be united with Christ
through the Holy Spirit means: to be directly united with Him.^
Here there is no difference between an ordinary Christian of our

' Kom. 8:9.

' Think of that bold word of Luther: that we, as Christians, "can make new
Decalogues, as Paul does in all his Epistles".

REVELATION AS THE WORD OF GOD

own day and an Apostle. And yet this difference does exist,
and it has great significance. Only it is not significant for the
content of the revelation, but only for the way in which it is
given: namely, for the way in which we, in contrast to the
Apostles, receive the Holy Spirit and therefore the knowledge
of Christ.

The second generation, and all the succeeding generations,
receive faith, illumination through the Spirit, hy means of the
witness of the first generation, of the Apostles, the eye-witnesses. '
Jesus Christ is not directly "here" for us, as He was for the
disciples. We possess Him only in their narrative which tells us
about Him. Their narrative and their doctrine are the means,
which God uses, in order to unite us with Him. This is inherent
in the very nature of the historical revelation. As an historical
revelation, it can only reach us along the historical path,
through the testimony of eye-witnesses. But this testimony,
in accordance with that to which it points, is not simply an
"historic fact"; the Apostles are not for us simply the bio-
graphers or chroniclers of Jesus. The historical revelation is
something more than an "historic fact". What they have to tell
and to teach is indeed the fact that the Word became flesh,
that the Son of God has come to us in human form. The
Christian message tells us not only of the Crucified Lord who
"suffered under Pontius Pilate", but of the Risen Lord, who
rose again on the third day; but the Resurrection is not a
"fact of world history", it is a fact of the history of the Kingdom
of God, which can only be reported by "eye-witnesses" who
have "beheld His glory" as the glory "of the only begotten
Son, full of grace and truth". ^ The fact of our redemption —
the history of salvation — is transmitted by the proclamation
of facts, that is, by the testimony of the Apostles, under the
guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

It is this testimony, then, that stands between us and Christ;
not, however, that it may be a barrier, but a bridge. Through
this message we may receive the same Holy Spirit, and may
therefore receive from the Spirit Himself the witness that He
is the Christ, just as they received it. That means, however,
that their witness can never be the basis and the object of faith,
but only the means of faith. We do not believe in Jesus Christ
because we first of all believe in the story and the teaching of
the Apostles, but by means of the testimony of their narrative
and their teaching we believe, as they do, and in a similar

I Cf. Kierkegaard, Philos. Fragmts. ^ John i : 14.

REVELATION AS THE WORD OF GOD

spirit of freedom. I Faith in Jesus Christ is not based upon a
previous faith in the Bible, but it is based solely upon the
witness of the Holy Spirit ; this witness, however, does not come
to us save through the witness of the Apostles — that apostolic
testimony to which our relation is one of freedom, and, although
it is true, it is fundamental for us, it is in no way dogmatically
binding, in the sense of the theory of Verbal Inspiration. The
Scripture — first of all the testimony of the Apostles to Christ —
is the "Crib wherein Christ lieth" (Luther). ^ It is a "word"
inspired by the Spirit of God; yet at the same time it is a
human message; its "human character" means that it is
coloured by the frailty and imperfection of all that is human.

' (ierman: Autopistie . . . "self-evidence of faith." (Tr.)

z "Vorrede auf das Alte Testament", Bindseil-Niemeyer, VII, 303.

CHAPTER 5

DOCTRINE AND THE WITNESS OF FAITH

The witness of the Apostles, by means of which they were able
to perform their "service of the Word", is twofold in character:
it is the story of Jesus, and it is the teaching about Jesus. This
dual character of their witness is in harmony with the actual
fact of revelation: that the "Word became flesh". The revela-
tion of God in Jesus Christ is not itself a doctrine, but a Person,
with His story.

The fact that the first disciples told the story of Jesus was not
a mistake, nor was it a deviation from the right path. It is not
due to a misunderstanding that the stories of Jesus are called
the "Four Gospels". They are unique, for they contain the very
heart of the Gospel. It was therefore an exaggeration — which
had an unfortunate influence at the beginning of the theological
renewal derived from Kierkegaard — ^when the great Danish
thinker maintained that in order to become a Christian, in order
to establish the Christian Faith, there was no longer any need
of "narrative" or record; all that was required was to state that
God became Man.^ God's Providence was more merciful: He
gave us the Four Gospels. The stories of Jesus must have played
a very great part in the primitive Christian kerygma, just as they
do to-day in all healthy and fruitful missionary work. In con-
trast to the doctrinal activity of the non-Christian religions or
philosophies, the Christian message is, first of all, narrative, not
doctrine.

Through the story of Jesus in the Gospels we are ourselves
confronted by Him. The fact that the Apostle, the missionary,
must above all "tell a story", and can only teach on the basis
of this narrative, brings out very clearly the distinctive element
in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. In other religions there
are doctrines which claim to deal with a supposed "revelation",
but there is no story of revelation. To proclaim the Word of God
means, in the New Testament, first of all to tell the story of Jesus,
of His life and His teaching, of His sufferings, His death and
His resurrection. So long as the Church is vitally aware of this,
the idea of the "Word of God" is not in danger of being mis-
understood in ultra-intellectual "orthodox" terms. Conversely,
where doctrine is emphasized at the expense of the Biblical

' Kierkegaard, Philos. Brocken, pp. 94 fE.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

narrative, there the intellectualistic misunderstanding of ortho-
doxy has already begun.

Reformation theology, if measured by this standard, cannot
be wholly acquitted from the reproach of having confused the
Word of God with doctrine; just as we cannot fail to be amazed
at its one-sided doctrinal instruction, based on the Catechism,
not only on didactic grounds, but also on those of theology.

The Reformers constantly maintained that the mere "story"
of Jesus was of no use to faith; up to a point, of course, they
were right, for in actual fact the mere story is as powerless to
awaken faith as mere doctrine. It is essential to the witness to
the Incarnate Son of God that the story of Jesus and the teach-
ing about Jesus should be indissolubly united. Even the narra-
tive as such cannot give us "Himself". A "sound film" of the
life of Jesus taken by a neutral reporter, or an account of the life
of Jesus written by an unbelieving compiler — such as Josephus,
for instance — would not have the power to awaken faith in
Jesus. But the Gospel narratives of the New Testament are not
neutral, for they do not give an "objective" account. They are
not photographs but portraits; they are not merely narratives
of something that happened, they are testimonies in the form of
narrative. This result, which the New Testament research of our
generation, in the sphere of criticism, has undoubtedly brought
out very clearly, has not yet been fully integrated into theo-
logical thought : even the telling of a story may be a testimony
to Christ, indeed this is the primary form of the primitive
Christian witness. This fact is so significant because it shows
very clearly that the essential Gospel, the "Word of God", the
revelation, is contained, not in the words spoken by the witness,
but in that to which he bears witness.

Here the oft-repeated formula, that "witness" is the act of
"pointing", gains its clearest meaning. We cannot "point"
away from ourselves to "the other" more clearly than by em-
phasizing the fact that the story we tell is itself the whole point
of our message, that it is itself "the Gospel". The story of Jesus
makes it very plain that it is not what we say that matters, but
Himself — so we must look away to Him, Himself. The story of
Jesus with this absolute emphasis: He of Whom I tell you is
the revelation of God — that is the meaning of all the Gospel
narratives, and the form of the earliest witness to Jesus
Christ.

It is certainly no accident, but is actually in the highest
degree significant, that the Risen Lord Himself said: "Ye shall

DOCTRINE AND THE WITNESS OF FAITH

be My witnesses. "^ Only when the "Hfe of Jesus" is seen and
narrated from that standpoint is it truly a witness, is it a
"Gospel", and not merely a series of "anecdotes about Jesus". ^
It is the Jesus who proved Himself to be the Christ in the
Resurrection, whose earthly life and words are to be narrated.
The orientation towards this point, which alone makes the
picture correct in the sense of testimony, is, however, only pos-
sible, and can therefore only then shape the narrative, of one
whose eyes have been opened by the Holy Spirit, so that in the
picture of the Crucified he is able to "behold" the "Glory of
God, full of grace and truth". Thus the Holy Spirit at the first
"spoke" in the Apostles, so that they were able to see the
picture of the earthly Jesus, of the Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, as
that of the Messiah and the Son of God. The picture of His
earthly life came first; the fact that it gradually dawned on
them that this was the picture of the Messiah was the first sign
that the Holy Spirit was witnessing in their hearts. Accordingly,
this is why the narrative of the acts and words of Jesus the
Messiah was the first form in which they gave their own testi-
mony. We ask : How did the Primitive Church carry on its mis-
sionary work? How did the Apostles carry out their calling as
witnesses of Jesus ? The standard answer to this question is not
the Corpus of the Apostolic Epistles — they were written to
communities which were already Christian — but the Gospel
narratives. The "Gospels" represent the finest missionary
preaching of the Apostolic period, of which otherwise we know
so little.

Because the Word became flesh, the story of Jesus had to be
told, and this story about Him is the primary witness ;3 but
because the Word became flesh, alongside of the witness in story
form, there had to be the witness in doctrinal form. In the
narrative-witness the revelation is emphasized as the Act of
God; in the witness in doctrinal form, the revelation is empha-
sized as the Word of God. Neither can be separated from the
other; nor can they ultimately be distinguished from one
another. For just as the story of Jesus, as the story of the
Messiah Jesus, the Son of God, already contains "doctrine", so
the doctrine of Christ as the doctrine of the Incarnate, Crucified,
and Risen Son of God, already contains the "story". And yet
the difference between the teaching of the Apostles and their

' Acts 1 : 8.

* Cf. K. L. Schmidt, Die Stellung der Evangelien in derallg. Literaturgeschichte,
Festschrift fiir H. Gunkel, 1923; and other works on Formgeschichte.
3 Cf. Theol. Worterbuch, IV, p. 121.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Gospel narrative is obvious. It is the task of the doctrinal testi-
mony to make the subject of these deeds and words, of this
suffering and victory, visible, which is invisible in the narrative
as such. While this is only suggested in the narrative of the
Gospels, it comes out clearly in the doctrinal testimony. Just as
the narrative moves deliberately, in order to show who He is,
and what is His secret, within the sphere of time and space, so
the doctrine develops gradually, within the sphere of thought,
in order to make the meaning of the mystery clear. .

If, however, we go back to the origin of both, to the point at
which "it pleased God to reveal His Son in me"; that is, where
the revelation becomes the Word of God, then we perceive that
an important change has taken place between this point and
the witness. Peter, who was the first to confess Jesus as the
Christ, because this "was not revealed unto him by flesh and
blood, but by the Father in heaven", does not tell the story of
Jesus, nor does he teach about Christ. His confession, the primi-
tive form of his witness, is still accomplished in the dimension
of personal encounter: "Truly Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the Living God!" The original form of all genuine witness is the
confession of faith in the form of the answering "Thou", evoked
by the "Thou"-word of God addressed to the soul. This is
true not only of the confession of the Apostle, but also of the
confession of every true believer, of that "Abba, Father", which
the Holy Spirit utters, evoking the response of faith in the same
inspired words. The act of faith is a confession in the form of
prayer, in the dimension "Thou-I";^ it is not a doctrinal state-
ment in the third person: "He-you".

Thus the first step in the development of the doctrinal testi-
mony is to move away from the "Thou-relation" to God; this
signifies a change of front: from God towards the world. In
doctrine man speaks no longer in the "Thou"-form to God — as
in the original confession of faith — but he now speaks about
God as "He". Doctrine is no longer a spontaneous, personal re-
sponse, in the form of prayer, to the Word of God, but already,
even in its simplest form, it is reflective speech about God. The
process of leaving the sphere of personal encounter in order to
enter into the impersonal sphere of reflection is the presupposi-
tion of all doctrine. God is now no longer the One who speaks,
but the One who is spoken about. It is no longer God who is
addressed, but a person, or a number of people. This change of
dimension, this transition from the personal sphere into the

' Cf. Offenbarung und Vernimft, pp. 119 ff.
38

DOCTRINE AND THE WITNESS OF FAITH

impersonal, is the same as that of reflection. Hence all doctrine
is reflective; but all doctrine does not represent a process of
reflection to the same extent. The extent to which the personal
relation is broken by the impersonal depends on the extent of
reflection and also of the didactic element. The more that God
becomes an object of instruction, instead of being One who is
addressed with believing fervour, the further the doctrine moves
away from the direct confession of faith, the more it becomes
theoretical and doctrinal. It is an essential characteristic of
the Biblical "doctrine", and especially of that of the New
Testament, that it contains a minimum of doctrinal reflection. '
Doctrine (or teaching) continually passes into worship, thanks-
giving and praise, into the immediacy of personal communion.
This comes out very clearly in a second process of refraction in
that which we describe as "doctrine".

The witness of the Apostles, as a personal confession of faith,
is always at the same time a call to obedience. The "Thou" has
not disappeared: it has only changed its vis-d-vis. The Apostle
who is both witness and teacher no longer addresses God,
but he speaks in the Name of God to Man. "We beseech
you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."^ All apostolic
teaching is speech which calls for faith and obedience, speech
which tries to win others, which tries to bring others within the
circle of those who believe. Even where the Apostle is giving
direct "teaching", what he says is more than a "lecture". Even
in this teaching, in spite of the fact that God is being "spoken
about" the "Thou"-relation still determines the attitude of the
speaker and the tendency of his message, because, and in so
far as, the speaker addresses man in the Name of God: with the
authority of a Divine commission, in absolute harmony with
the God who reveals Himself to him. Thus such teaching, even
where it takes place in the third person, for the sake of this
"Thou", is not really reflective. It is not what we usually mean
by "doctrine"; it is witness which demands an answer.

This witness, which is also a summons to faith and obedience,
already differs in a significant way from instruction, as, for
instance, the instruction of catechumens for Baptism in the
Early Church. It is true that here also the faith of the learners
is the aim, but it is not the immediate aim. The change to the
third person, to teaching-about-God, goes deeper than in the

• The very word "teaching" or "doctrine" has a far less theoretical and
academic meaning in the New Testament than it has to-day. Cf . article on
diddoKeiv in the Worterbuch z. N.T., II, pp. 147 ff. » 2 Cor. 5: 20.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

witness of faith; the extension into the dimension of the third
person covers and includes a wider sphere, more time is given to
a reflective, and rather more scholastic, form of teaching.

The teaching of the Catechism, with its questions and answers,
is directed primarily to the intellect; the subject must be under-
stood, and to this end it is explained. Here we no longer hear —
or if we do, only from very far off — that urgent cry: "Be ye
reconciled to God! Repent!" But the deflection of the pupil's
mind from the sphere of faith, of existence in the "Thou"-
dimension by doctrinal teaching, is strictly limited to the
explanation of that which is elementary and necessary. It is
only the intellectual questions which clamour for consideration
which lead to that theoretical extension which we call "theo-
logy" or "dogmatics".

In this sphere reflection predominates: thought and prayer
are separated, not, it is true, in principle, but in practice. The
teacher may, of course, remain aware that the subject he is
teaching is his confession of faith, and that the instruction of the
pupil ultimately demands the obedience of faith ; but this faith
is a distant source and a distant goal. Between both there ex-
tends the broad space of mental reflection — and the further it
extends the more does the unlikeness increase between the
subject that is discussed, and Him whom we address in the
response of prayer. The further dogmatics extends, the more
remote is its relation to its Primal Source ; the further it drifts
away from the confession of faith as "being laid hold of" by
God, the more is the personal relation with God replaced by an
impersonal one.

The change which this makes in the confession of faith is so
great, and the danger of drifting away completely from the
Origin and from the Goal is so acute, that we must ask ourselves
why, then, does this take place? Now we understand all those
objections — already mentioned — to the study of dogmatic
theology; we must, therefore, repeat the question: Why does
this change have to take place ? Why should it take place ? But
we have not forgotten the answer which was given earlier : The
transformation of the adoring confession of faith into a "doc-
trine-about-God" must take place — not for its own sake, not
because faith itself requires it, but — for the sake of the believer,
in face of doctrinal errors or heresies, in face of the questions
which necessarily arise in our own minds, and in face of the
difficulties which the original Biblical doctrine provides for the
understanding.

DOCTRINE AND THE WITNESS OF FAITH

In the light of the foregoing observations we can now give an
answer to three questions, which, apart from these considera-
tions, could either not be answered at all or could not be
answered clearly. The first is that of the relation between faith
and doctrine; the second is that of the difference between the
knowledge of faith and theological knowledge; the third con-
cerns the limits of theological effort. Obviously the relation
between faith and doctrine is twofold in character : Faith springs
from doctrine in so far as doctrine springs from faith ; the doc-
trine of the Apostle is e/c iriaTGOisels maTLv.^ The Divine revela-
tion makes use of the believing testimony of the man on whom
Christ has laid hold, in order that he may comprehend more.
Faith urges us to preach and to teach; the preaching and the
teaching create faith.

The difference between the knowledge of faith and theo-
logical knowledge, which is so difficult to define, and yet so
necessary, is not one of subject or of content, but one of the
form or dimension of existence. Theological or dogmatic know-
ledge is, it is true, the knowledge of faith in accordance with its
origin, but not with its form. One who thinks in terms of theo-
logy must, so long as he does this, pass from the attitude of
the worshipper to that of the thinker who is concerned with
his subject. Greater clearness and precision of theological con-
cepts can only be gained at the cost of directness of faith, and
that readiness for action which it contains. While a person is
studying theology he is not in the state of the praying and
listening disciple, but he is a pupil, a teacher, a scholar, a thinker.
This does not mean that theology must inevitably damage faith
and obedience, but it does mean that it may harm it — that is,
when the temper of the theologian replaces the spirit of the man
of prayer, who listens for the Voice of God. This is what we
mean by the term "Theologismus" .^ When we see this, however,
we also see why it is impossible to draw a sharp line of de-
marcation between the truth of faith and theological truth. The
distinction is relative in character : the more that reflection and
impersonal objectivity predominate, the greater will be the
difference.

This brings us to the third question: that of the limitations
of the theological enterprise, and answers it. Theology, dog-
matics, doctrine in the highest form of reflection, are not "in
themselves" necessary. It is not faith itself which urges us

I Rom. i: 17.

* I.e. the danger of putting theology in the place of personal faith. (Tr.)

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

towards theology, but certain definite impulses within the com-
munity of believers, or in the heart of thebeliever himself. Theo-
logy is not necessary^unto salvation, but it is necessary within the
Church, and necessary for a person who must and will think.
This sense of compulsion is one reason for studying dogmatic
theology; it justifies its usefulness. On the other hand, in order
to keep dogmatic theology within its bounds we may claim that
only so much theology is good as can be combined with no
injury to the attitude of faith, and to obedience itself. To ignore
these limitations is already a symptom of that unhealthy
process which we call "Theologismus" ; but this is itself based
upon the failure to distinguish plainly between the truth given
by faith and theological truth, of the immediate knowledge of
faith, and of that refracted by reflection, which must more or
less be laid to the charge of the whole of the older theology.

CHAPTER 6

THE NORM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

All sound doctrine claims to be based on Truth. This is the
hall-mark of all right thinking. When the claim is made: "This
is what you ought to think about this matter", it rests upon the
conviction that to think in this particular way is the right way
to think; that is, it is thinking in accordance with Truth. It is
this which distinguishes sound doctrine from propaganda; the
man who is "out for propaganda" is not concerned with Truth;
all he wants to know is whether a particular view will be
useful to him for a particular end. Christian doctrine claims to
be true doctrine, that is, the true doctrine of God and His relation
to Man and the world. The vastness of this claim, as we have
seen, is based on the fact that its foundation does not lie in
human knowledge, but in divine revelation. But this basis is at
the same time a condition; Christian doctrine can only legiti-
mately make this unconditional claim to Truth in so far as it
is based upon revelation. Thus its basis becomes its criterion
and its norm. We now have to inquire how revelation becomes
the norm of Christian doctrine. Historical experience, indeed,
shows us that this question is not superfluous; the very fact
that there is such a variety of Christian doctrine, much of it
contradictory, suggests that a mere appeal to revelation is not
sufficient to form the basis for the legitimacy of its claim to be
the true doctrine.

Because God has revealed Himself there can be, and is, sound
Christian doctrine. But the question is: How does this basis of
sound doctrine, revelation, become the norm, and thus the
criterion of true doctrine? Between the decisive, objective, form
of revelation, Jesus Christ, and doctrine, there lies that sub-
jective element in revelation which we call "faith", though
perhaps it would be better to describe it as that process which
is accomplished within the subject. All Christian doctrine
regards itself as a confession of faith, as an expression of the fact
that the objective form of revelation has become subjective
knowledge. Nevertheless, there is the possibility of illusion; for
a doctrine may claim to be a confession of faith, and therefore a
response to the objective form of revelation, when it is actually
very different from that which it claims and seems to be. It may
be based upon a misunderstanding of the divine revelation, or

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

upon opinions which have nothing whatever to do with
revelation.

It is true that with the recognition of revelation — in the
sense in which we have defined it — as the basis of Christian
doctrine, we have already done something to distinguish legiti-
mate from illegitimate Christian doctrine. A doctrine which
does not appeal to this revelation as its origin, but to some
other basis of knowledge, is by this very fact disqualified from
the outset; all merely speculative theories, and all relativistic
doctrines of God based on Comparative Religion, or on the
Psychology of Religion — whatever their value may be in other
directions — cannot be recognized as the Christian doctrine of
God. In an earlier work of mine^ I have discussed in detail
how this exclusive basis of Christian doctrine deals with the
various objections of the reason and justifies them; here all this
must simply be presupposed. But this appeal to revelation, in
the definitely Christian sense, has merely a limiting significance,
not a constitutive one, in order to establish the validity of
Christian doctrine; it is the "conditio sine qua non", but it is
not yet "ratio sufficiens" to establish the legitimacy of the claim
of any doctrine to be Christian doctrine. This second step is
only accomplished when it can be shown how the revelation, to
which the doctrine appeals, becomes for doctrine itself the
norm of all its teaching, and even the norm of faith itself.

This transition from the basis to the norm takes place within
the Church founded upon the Reformation through the estab-
lishment of the "Scriptural principle". Christian doctrine is
legitimate, is truly based upon revelation, and the faith which
is based upon it is the true knowledge of faith, in so far as this
doctrine and this faith agree with the teaching of the Bible.

This Scriptural principle of the Reformation is established
in contrast to the principle of Tradition of the Catholic Church,
in accordance with which the doctrine of the Church, and
especially the exposition of Scripture, made by the highest
ecclesiastical doctrinal authority, the Pope alone, ex sese,
without any right of appeal on the part of a critic or inquirer
to the Holy Scriptures themselves, determines what is Biblical
and what is sound doctrine.- The Catholic doctrinal authority,
that is, the Pope, is alone qualified to say in a binding authorita-
tive manner what Scripture teaches. In setting up this autho-

' Offenbariing tind Vernunft, 2nd Part.

2 See the Appendix on the "Authority of Scripture", and its place in The
History of Dogma, pp. 113 ff.

THE NORM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

rity, however, not in thesi, it is true, but in praxi, the authority
of the Church is set above the authority of Scripture, and the
Scripture as a critical court of appeal is eliminated ; this position
is justified by the fiction that the apostolic ecclesiastical oral
tradition contains elements which are not emphasized, or are
not sufficiently emphasized in Scripture. Even if one were in-
clined to admit some truth in this fiction, it would only be in
the sense that such truth is a complement to the Biblical
doctrine; but this would not justify it in claiming that it in-
validates the Scripture altogether as a critical court of appeal.
The true reason is obvious, even though it is never acknow-
ledged: the Catholic doctrinal authority, and many of its
dogmas, would become insecure, if that court of appeal (i.e.
the Bible) were actually allowed to function.

Now, however, what is or should be the basis of the Reforma-
tion principle of Scripture? To this question Reformation
theology has only been able to give an inadequate answer,
because in this theology, alongside of the right view of the
authority of Scripture, which distinguishes the revelation in
Jesus Christ from the Biblical testimony to it, an erroneous,
"orthodox" doctrine of the authority of Scripture was at work,
which became increasingly effective.

According to this view there is no question of the authority
of Scripture, since the Verbal Inspiration of Scripture and the
absolute identity of revelation and Biblical doctrine are the
axiomatic presuppositions of all doctrine and of true faith.
When the Scriptures are absolutely identified with the Word
of God, this axiomatic authority of the doctrine of Scripture,
and its absolute character as norm, are taken for granted and
need no basis. But if Luther's statement is valid, that Christ is
"rex et dominus scripturae" , then certainly the question of the
authority of Scripture, and the kind of norm Scripture contains,
has been set up.

As in the case of the Reformers, we must express our first
principle thus: the Scriptures have the authority of a norm, and
the basis for this principle is this: the Scriptures possess this
authority because they are the primary witness to the revelation
of God in Jesus Christ. ^ This revelation is central, both in the
Old and the New Testament, in Christian doctrine as well as in
Christian faith. But Jesus Christ comes to us through the
witness of the Apostles; this witness has for us the validity of
a norm because it is that which bases and creates faith. This is

' Cf. Offenbarung und Vernunft, pp. 124 ff.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the new truth which broke through at the Reformation, and was
called to overcome the orthodox axiomatic view of the previous
view. "Whatever is concerned with Christ is apostolic." All
Christian doctrine is based upon the witness of the Apostles;
the primitive witness supports the witness of the Church. ^ The
doctrine of the Apostles is the primary medium, through which
the revelation comes to us.

This historical priority, and this actual basis, are, however,
still not the same as the establishment of a norm. A further
element must be added, namely, the concrete priority, the fact
that the Apostolic doctrine comes first, before all later forms
of doctrine. This pride of place is based on the fact that par-
ticular dignity is accorded to the original witness because it
still belongs to the actual happenings which constitute the
Christian revelation. This is the dignity which is ascribed to
the Apostle over against all the later teachers and doctors of
the Church: that he, as the first to receive, and indeed to have
a share in the historical revelation in Christ, has a special
measure of the knowledge of Christ. He, in contrast to all who
come later, is the eye-witness of the Resurrection, as he was
the eye-witness of the earthly life of Jesus.

But this privileged position is not an absolute one, which
can be clearly defined. This comes out in two facts which can
be established, objectively, quite plainly:

First of all, in the fact that the circle of the Apostles cannot
be rigidly defined: is Paul, Mark, Luke, or the unknown author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews an "eye-witness" in the same
sense as one of the Twelve? Secondly, in the fact that the
doctrines of the Apostles, the doctrines of the New Testament,
to a great extent differ from one another. Recourse to "the"
doctrine of the New Testament is, in the strictly literal sense
of legal doctrinal authority, impossible. The unity of the witness
of the New Testament in the strict, unconditional sense of the
word, lies solely and alone in Him, the One who is confessed,
but not in the teaching of the witnesses. They all stand in a
circle round Him, and they all point to Him, each from a
different standpoint; their witness indeed points to Him, the
One, but the witness of each is different. The refraction of the
divine revelation in the human medium of the knowledge of
faith and the witness of faith is already at work in the primitive
Christian testimony, and can only be argued away either by a
forcible imposition of dogma, or by a deliberate resolve to ignore

' Eph, 2: 20.
46

]

THE NORM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

the real facts of the situation. Anyone who really listens to the
Apostolic witness to Christ feels compelled to seek the unity of
the truth of revelation in the very variety of these testimonies.

The priority of this court of appeal, however, also implies its
relative character. Like the historical record, so also the theo-
logical doctrine of the Apostles must be subjected to critical
examination. This criticism cannot result from human rational
truths, but only from the revelation in Christ itself, which is
attested in the doctrine of the Apostles. Thus it seems to move
in a circle : only through the doctrine of the Apostles can criticism
be exercised on the doctrine of the Apostles. This circle is, how-
ever, only real for those who hold a legalistic "orthodox" view
of doctrinal authority.

Actually, this is the point at issue : that the real norm is the
revelation, Jesus Christ Himself, who Himself witnesses to us
through the Holy Spirit, who, however, in addition to this His
self -revelation, makes use of the witness of the Apostles. While
we are bound in all absolute sense to the medium, to the means
of revelation of the Apostolic witness, we are only bound in a
relative sense to the authority of this witness. The absolute
authority is Jesus Christ Himself, whom we only possess through
the record and the teaching of the Apostles; but He, whom we
only have through them, stands above them. Their witness is
valid, absolutely binding, in so far as it really witnesses to Him
Himself. It is true that, as Luther says: "Whatever is concerned
with Christ is apostolic."

A legalistic, immutable authority, such as the human desire
for security would so gladly possess — and indeed is offered in
an orthodox doctrine of the Scriptures as an axiomatic autho-
rity, or in the Catholic doctrine of the infallible doctrinal
authority of the Pope — is thus denied to us. The word of
Scripture is not the final court of appeal, since Jesus Christ
Himself alone is this ultimate authority; but even while we
examine the doctrine of Scripture, we remain within the Scrip-
tures not, it is true, as an authority, but as the source of all that
truth which possesses absolute authority.

Up till now we have spoken of the Scriptures as the sum of
the Apostolic testimony to Jesus Christ. This raises two further
questions: what is our attitude to the Old Testament as witness
to the provisional or preparatory revelation ? And what should
be our attitude to the statements of Scripture which do not
come under the heading of witness to revelation ?

So far as the Scriptures of the Old Testament are concerned,

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the phrase the "Word of God" has far less final validity than in
the New Testament. Here, indeed, the still greater variety and
lack of unity of the teaching — and also of the narrative — warns
us of the necessity for critical distinctions. The orthodox
identification of the Word of Scripture with the Word of God
could only be maintained at all — so far as the Old Testament was
concerned — by leaving the widest possible latitude for allegorical
interpretation. The less that the Scriptures are taken literally,
the more room is there for freedom of exposition — we might
even say, for arbitrary interpretation; then every single ex-
positor becomes a kind of Pope who alone possesses the right
key to the meaning of the Scriptures. The Scriptures, then,
become not a norm of doctrine, but a proof of a doctrine which
stands firm independently of it ; it is no longer a critical court
of appeal, but it is used merely to cover, or in any case to illus-
trate an interpretation of doctrine which is regarded as abso-
lutely convincing.

In principle, however, there is the same relation between
the Old Testament witness to revelation and revelation itself as
there is between the Apostolic witness and Jesus Christ, with this
difference only: that over the revelation in the Old Testament
itself there stands the word "provisional". It is an essential
part of the Christian Faith : it is part of the Apostolic doctrine
of the Old Testament, that the revelation which it contains has
the character of "prophecy", of pointing forward, and of
preparation. My work on the doctrine of revelation has already
shown how this should be treated in detail. " The second ques-
tion, that concerning the statements of Scripture which do not
refer to revelation itself, is simple to answer. In so far as the
Bible speaks about subjects of secular knowledge, it has no
teaching authority. Neither its astronomical, cosmological
picture of the world, nor its geographical view, nor its zoo-
logical, ethnographical or historical statements are binding upon
us, whether they are in the Old Testament or in the New. Here,
rather, free course should be given to rational scientific criti-
cism.2 Even in these sections the Scripture remains the sole
source of our knowledge of revelation, to which we are absolutely
obliged to turn, but it is in no way the norm of our knowledge
and our doctrine. We possess revelation through the Bible as a
whole, to which statements of all kinds, ideas of the universe

■ Offenbarung uyid Vernunft, pp. 131 ff.

* On the relation between a "Bible-faith" and historical criticism, see
Offenbarung und Vernunft, Chap. 18.

THE NORM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

of the ancient world, Jewish and Early Christian systems of
chronology, etc., belong. We cannot disentangle the one from
the other, for these cosmological ideas are, moreover, the alpha-
bet in which the witness of revelation is spoken to us. But that
is no reason why we should confuse the witness itself with this
alphabet ; on the contrary, we should try to distinguish the one
from the other, although we cannot separate them.

In all this, all we are trying to do is to free the newly dis-
discovered Scriptural Principle of the Reformers from the tradi-
tional orthodox, formally axiomatic faith in the Bible, and to
show clearly what the teachers of the Reformation period never
succeeded in doing — although in principle we owe this truth to
them. The result of our considerations is this: the Scriptures
are the absolute authority, in so far as in them the revelation,
Jesus Christ Himself, is supreme. But the doctrine of Scripture
as such, although it is the absolute basis of our Christian doc-
trine, is only in a conditional sense the norm of the same. Critical
reflection on the adequateness, or inadequateness, of the
Biblical doctrinal testimony for the revelation to which it bears
witness, is not eliminated; we still have to face it; a final resort
to a single Scriptural passage is impossible for us. Hence in each
instance all Christian doctrine is, and remains, a venture of
faith.

CHAPTER 7

DOGMA AND DOGMATICS

Since Christian doctrine is itself a form of revelation, one of
its essential characteristics is a claim to absolute truth and
validity, a claim to obedience. If we posit the alternative:
either an attitude of "tolerance" with its "relativistic" spirit,
or one of dogmatic intolerance, then undoubtedly Christian
doctrine is on the side of the latter. But this alternative is false.
The fact that various forms of widely divergent "Christian
doctrine" have always existed within the Christian Church
shows us clearly that the "revelatory" authority of such
doctrine is limited. This, as we have seen, is a recognized reason
for the necessity of dogmatic theology or dogmatics. The
Church is forced to distinguish "sound" doctrine from
"unsound", that which conforms to the "orthodox" standard
from that which does not.

But while doctrine as such is primarily the individual
concern of individual teachers, the Church must endeavour to
distinguish "standard" doctrine from that which is not,
"sound" doctrine from "unsound" in such a way that it is
evident to all that this verdict expresses the view of the Church
as a whole. The Church knows that her unity, and the validity
of her preaching and her teaching, are seriously endangered
by the fact of contradictory doctrines; for that which is con-
tradictory cannot be equally true, and the preaching and
teaching activity of the Church cannot make a strong claim for
the obedience of faith if contradictory doctrines are put forth
in the name of the Church. Not only the outward unity, but
also the inner unity of the Church, and not only the unity, but
also the commission and work of the Church — that is, the task
of finding a way into the hearts and minds of men for the divine
revelation, are seriously injured if the Church is not in a position
to distinguish between that which is the standard and correct
doctrine and that which is not.

It is the perception of this fact which lies at the root of the
formation of dogma. ^ In order to make this necessary distinc-
tion the Church uses the form of a public Confession of Faith.
A Confession of Faith is primarily a spontaneous and individual
expression of faith; the individual Christian "confesses" — for

' On the history of the conception of dogma, see below, pp. 103 ff.

DOGMA AND DOGMATICS

instance when summoned before a tribunal — his Christian
faith. Secondly, there is the "Confession of Faith" in the form
of Christian preaching and teaching. Every Christian preacher
and teacher — even the simplest father of a family who instructs
his children in the Christian Faith — teaches others by the very
fact of "confessing" his faith, and he confesses his faith before
others in order to teach them. This, however, does not mean
that the Church as a whole may feel the necessity to confess its
faith publicly and in common. This may take place first of all
in the body of the local Church as a whole, in the gathering for
public worship, as part of the response of the local Church in
thanksgiving and praise to the Word of God which is pro-
claimed, as a liturgical act; it may also take place in a universal
form, including all the Churches as a whole, if the occasion
arises.

This occasion, however, does arise when the Church sees that
her commission and her unity are menaced by the variety of
contradictory doctrines. It is then that there arises what is
called, in the narrower sense of the word, the "ecclesiastical
Confession of Faith", the Credo, or the dogma. The aim of this
common confession is to express the true faith, and to fix a
standard of doctrine. Thus the Church sets up a norm of faith
and doctrine which is intended to act as a means of separation,
as a criterion of "sound" versus "unsound" doctrine. The need
for such an instrument to scrutinize and criticize doctrine is all
the more urgent since doctrinal aberrations affect not only
details of secondary importance, but also the heart of Christian
doctrine, the truth of revelation itself.

Since the reasons which force the Church to work out such
a "Confession" are almost always operative everywhere, it is
not surprising that the Church — in its various branches — has
continually felt obliged to set up such norms of faith and
doctrine as should provide a "standard", and give the right
direction to Christian belief, especially at times where the
essence of faith and doctrine was gravely menaced. But the
history of the formation of Creeds shows equally clearly both
its inevitability and its problems and dangers.

The first and most important question is of the authority of
the Confession which is thus formulated. The Roman Catholic
Church claims for her "confession" absolute, final validity, a
claim which includes the whole sphere of faith. While the
ancient Catholic Church, the Church of the earlier centuries,
claimed this authority for the (Ecumenical Church Council,

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

constituted according to ecclesiastical law, and thus established
and based this claim, up to the time of the Council of Trent,
upon the theory of the infallibility of (Ecumenical Councils
rightly gathered together, in the Vatican the already very
ancient predominance of the Curia won the victory, which thus
established the Papal teaching-office as the sole final court of
appeal, and thus gave to it absolute doctrinal authority,
established by the law of the Church. ^

The Confessional writings of the period of the Reformation,
on the whole, share the ancient Catholic view of the absolute
teaching authority of the Church — certainly on the pre-
supposition, silently assumed by the Lutheran Church, and
explicitly stated by the Reformed Churches — that the Con-
fession of the Church must agree with the norm of Holy
Scripture. In both cases belief in the unassailable doctrinal
authority of the rightly constituted Church Council representing
the whole Church is the controlling factor. Two ideas lie behind
this view: firstly, a very strong belief in the effective spiritual
power of the Christian community, as compared with the
isolated individual believer, or the individual teacher or
preacher; secondly, there is a dangerous over-emphasis on the
authority of the Christian community and its ecclesiastical
organization as the guarantee of Truth.

The acceptance of this principle of the authority of the
Confession of Faith is all the more surprising, since the Refor-
mation arose when Luther threw down his challenge, which
shook the very bases of this ecclesiastical authority. Who, then,
can guarantee that the few hundred Churchmen, who consti-
tute the Synods which create Confessions of Faith, grasp the
meaning of the divine authority and express it in their teaching,
while the individual thinker who contradicts them has no such
authority ? Who, then, gives to the Church Council the authority
to give an interpretation of Holy Scripture, which is binding
for faith? In any case, it is a fact that all previous Confessions,
without exception, contain cosmological elements which are
in opposition to our scientific knowledge. ^ Thus doctrinal
statements were formulated, with absolute authority, believed
to be based upon the divine revelation itself, which have since
proved to be mistaken, even though only in part, and on points
of secondary importance.

' Romani Pontificis definitiones ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae,
irreformabiles esse" {"Vaticanum", in Denzinger, 1839).

^ Think, for instance, of the idea of an historical "Fall" of "Adam" — cf. my
anthropology Man in Revolt, Chapters 5 and 6.

DOGMA AND DOGMATICS

Thus, both the fundamental perception of the possibility of
error of even the most Biblical of ecclesiastical Councils, as well
as the testimony of fact, agree that the "Confession", or Credo,
or dogma, of the Church can only possess limited authority;
this implies the possibility of further light being given to the
Church on any particular problem. In principle dogma comes
under the same provisional authority as the doctrine of the
individual teacher. On the other hand, as an act of the whole
Church, by which we may assume that particular care in
critical exarriination will be exercised, an act in which, above all,
we have the promise of genuine fellowship in faith, there may
be ascribed to it a particular relative authority or dignity.

This estimate of dogma alone corresponds to the fundamental
view of the Reformation; it constitutes the essential charac-
teristic which distinguishes the Protestant from the Roman
Catholic understanding of Faith and revelation. For the
Catholic believer, as for the individual Catholic teacher, the
dogma of the Church is fixed, it is the final court of appeal in
matters of religious truth; for the Protestant teacher, on the
other hand, the dogma, whether that of his own Church in
particular, or that which is common to all the Churches, is, it
is true, a court of appeal of the highest importance, which he
will find it difficult to ignore, but it is never ihe final authority,
forcing him to suppress his own view entirely. That is why the
Protestant Churches do not set up a fixed system of "dogma",
but instead, they have "Confessions of Faith".

The danger of turning dogma into an absolute is one danger,
but there is a second one — certainly closely connected with
the first, which is, if possible, still greater. The doctrine of the
Church is always the Confession, the expression, but not the
object of faith. The Object of faith is the revelation, Jesus
Christ Himself, not the Credo of the Church. But if this Creed
of the Church is wrongly equated with absolute Truth, then it
is almost impossible to avoid setting it up as the actual object
of faith. Faith becomes faith in dogma, belief in an authoritative
human doctrine ; it then ceases to be what it is according to the
teaching of the Bible: faith in the truth of revelation, which
can never be equated with any human doctrine at all.^ The
revelation is Jesus Christ Himself, not a doctrine about Jesus
Christ. In true faith we have to do with Jesus Christ Himself,
not with a doctrine about Him. The doctrine points to Him;

' We owe an abiding debt of gratitude to W. Herrmann for the way in
which he continually pointed out this fundamental contradiction.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

its aim is to show Him, and to make Him plain and visible
before the eyes of men.

Doctrine, rightly understood, is the finger which points to
Him, along which the eye of faith is directed towards Him.
So long as faith clings to the "finger", to the interpretative
doctrine, it has not really arrived at its goal; thus it is not yet
actually faith. Faith is the encounter with Him, Himself, but
it is not submission to a doctrine about Him, whether it be the
doctrine of the Church, or that of the Apostles and Prophets.
The transference of faith from the dimension of personal en-
counter into the dimension of factual instruction is the great
tragedy in the history of Christianity. The Reformers were
right when they rejected the unconditional authority of ecclesi-
astical doctrine as such; but when the theologians of the
Reformation began to believe in a doctrine about Jesus Christ,
instead of in Jesus Christ Himself, they lost the best fruit of
the Reformation. Reformation theology was right in setting up
the Biblical doctrinal authority above the ecclesiastical authority
as their norm; but they were wrong, when they made the
Biblical doctrine their final unassailable authority, by identi-
fying the Word of God with the word of the Bible. When they
did this, in principle, they relapsed into Catholic error; the
Protestant faith also became a doctrinal faith, belief in dogma,
only now the Biblical dogma took the place of the doctrine of
the Church. Protestant orthodoxy arrested the development
of the Reformation as a religious awakening.

This distinction between "Jesus Christ Himself" and the
doctrine about Him, as final authority, must not, however, be
misunderstood in the sense of separation. We do not possess
"Jesus Christ Himself" otherwise than in and with the doctrine
about Him. I But it is precisely this doctrine, without which we
cannot have "Him Himself", which is not Himself, and there-
fore has only a relative authority. This authority increases
the more plainly and clearly it is connected with Jesus Christ
Himself. Thus it is precisely the duty of a genuinely religious
— which means, also, a genuinely critical — system of dogmatics
to undertake a careful examination of this necessary, obvious
connexion between Jesus Christ and the doctrine concerning
Him.

Dogma, that is, the Confession of Faith of the whole Church,
does not come into being without much thought and effort on
the part of theologians. It is the faith of the Church, it is true,

' Cf. K. Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, 1, i, p. 142,

DOGMA AND DOGMATICS

which it expresses; the faith which in principle is held by each
individual living member of the Church. But the spontaneous
individual faith knows no definitive, authoritative and ex-
clusive formulation. It is true that out of the common life of
the worshipping community the main belief, shared by all,
may be continually expressed in the form of the common
Confession of Faith, as, for instance, the phrase, Kvpios xptcn-ds-,
was undoubtedly a confessional formula of the Primitive
Christian Church, spontaneously arising out of the worship of
the Church. Further, the expansion of this very simple, and
earliest. Christian Confession into the threefold Baptismal
formula which forms the core of the Apostles' Creed, may have
arisen spontaneously without special theological reflection. But
what a gulf there is between these simple forms of the Creed
of the Church and the Confessional writings of the period of
the Reformation, as, for instance, the Apology of Melanchthon
(for the Augsburg Confession) or the Second Helvetic Con-
fession !

However, not only elaborate doctrinal confessions of this
kind, which are absolute masterpieces of the theological craft,
but also the "symbols" (creeds) of the Early Church, which
arose out of the controversies of the third to the fifth centuries,
are the result of theological, "dogmatic" labour — their formu-
lated doctrines, with their intellectual acumen and their
antithetical character, could never be regarded as expressions
of a naive, spontaneous, unreflective faith, but only as products
of the highest intellectual activity, willingly devoted to the
preservation of the purity of the treasure of the faith of the
Church. They may be compared with the artificial "settings"
with which the jeweller surrounds the pearl as a natural pro-
duct, in order to protect it from loss and destruction, and in
order to enhance its beauty. The dogma is an artificial product
of theological reflection, whose "art" must be shown in the fact
that it exactly fits the form of the "pearl", that is, that upon
a foundation of extreme intellectual activity, it lays stress upon
the essential element in faith, brings it out, so to speak, and
defends it against all misunderstandings that may threaten it.

Now, however, the simple question: "What, then, is the
chief thing in our Faith?" springs from an abstract process of
reflection, and indeed evokes another. But this is still more
true of the question: "What is the distinctive element in our
faith which must be defended against the erroneous belief
which menaces our Church?" The history of dogma in the

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Early Church, therefore, shows how much patient and pene-
trating theological labour, in thought and reflection, preceded
the formation of these short classical credal formulas. If we
compare the language of these dogmas with the language of the
New Testament the difference is obvious. The terminology of
the doctrine of the Trinity of the Athanasian Creed, and indeed
even that of the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, is alien to
the New Testament. The latter does not contain the terms
homousios, the "Persons" , the Trinity; we may say, however,
that the New Testament possessed all the elements which were
ready for this process of development: the New Testament
provides the premises; dogma draws the conclusions. But in
order to perceive the truth that these non-reflective, un-
systematic, scattered, and (from the theological point of view),
naive ideas of the New Testament are the premises from which
this conclusion may be drawn, a vast amount of abstract work
was required, in the shape of the analysis and formulation of
ideas, and the classification of these ideas in systematic form.
Between the formulas of the New Testament and those of
the Athanasian Creed there lie four centuries of the most
intensive theological, "dogmatic", intellectual toil. In this
sense we may, and must, say: dogma is the product of
dogmatics.

This, however, is only one side of the question. The second
becomes plain when we start from the position of the Catholic
theologian. For the Catholic theologian of the present day dogma
is that which is "given", behind which he cannot, and may
not, go. His intellectual labour, therefore, can only aim at the
interpretation and explanation of dogma; it is not his concern,
or his duty, to examine the dogma critically, in the endeavour
to replace it by a better dogma. Thus his work can only be
called "dogmatics" in the sense that it is subordinated to,
directed by, dogma; it must start from dogma and return to
dogma, and moreover to the given dogma, not to the dogma as
an idea or a postulate. The same is true, even if only in a
limited way, of the work of every ecclesiastical dogmatic theo-
logian. Even the believing Lutheran theologian starts from
his Augsburg Confession and returns to it, just as the
believing Reformed theologian does with his Second Helvetic
Confession.

He does not want, first of all, to create or prepare a new-
dogma, but, by using his brain, to penetrate, expound and
secure the right understanding of the Confession of Faith of

DOGMA AND DOGMATICS

his own Church. His dogmatics, too, is determined by the given
dogma, starts from it and returns to it again.

And yet the difference between the Cathohc theologian
and his Protestant colleague is very great, though this comes
out far more clearly in the case of the Reformed, than of the
Lutheran, theologian. The very fact that in the Reformed
Churches there is nothing which corresponds to these really
standard Lutheran Confessional writings is characteristic.
There are a large number of Reformed Confessional works,
which differ a good deal from one another, none of which
possesses the "canonical" validity which is ascribed to both the
Lutheran documents. Hence the Reformed theologian, from
time immemorial, and down to the present day, has a much
freer attitude towards dogma than the Lutheran.

But both are aware — if they have not become completely
petrified in that confessional othodoxy which leads back to
Catholicism — that the "Confession" of the Church is a product
of human labour, and for that reason is, in principle, capable
of error, and probably needing reform. For this reason, even
if to a greatly varying extent, they are critical of the dogma of
their Church, and in so far as this is their attitude, their dog-
matic work is fundamentally directed towards a reformed type
of dogma. Thus "dogmatics" acquires the meaning of a critical
examination of the "given" doctrine, and a forward-looking
preparation of a new and better Confession of Faith.

This, however, creates a curious dualism in all dogmatic
labour. The ecclesiastical Confession was indeed created with
the very aim of establishing the doctrine of the Church as a
norm, in order to arrest the development of arbitrary views
and tendencies dangerous to faith. The Confession therefore is
meant to be binding, and indeed rather more binding in the
realm of doctrine and of teaching than in the sphere of faith
and in the belief of Christian men and women.

The Church is impelled to formulate dogmas, not because
there are different kinds of faith, but because there are varieties
of doctrine. Thus it should be the Church's endeavour to
instruct, direct, and to some extent control the teachers of the
Church by its dogma. Thus in the mind of the Church the work
of the theologian is primarily an explication of the given dogma.
On the other hand, in the interest of the authority of the
revelation itself — rightly understood — the Church should not
hamper the intellectual freedom of its recognized teachers,
but should give them every facility for the critical examination

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

of their present Confession of Faith, in order to extend its
scope.

Thus the theologian stands on the threshold which both
separates the existing Confession of Faith from the future,
improved Confession, and also serves as a point of transition
from the one to the other. His point of departure is the existing
Confession of faith; but before him there stands the "given"
revelation in the Scriptures, "given" to him and to the Church.
This revelation, however, is not "given" in a static manner; it
is not a system of statements for man to take and use; rather
is it something with which the Church has been entrusted,
something for which we have to "search the Scriptures".

We now see more clearly a third danger which is connected
with the idea of dogma. The dogma of the Church as a Con-
fession of Faith is spiritual, pneumatic, a product of faith,
whose authority is spiritual only. Even Church order, and
order in the Church, is a spiritual matter. The Christian Church
— as the body of believers — cannot tolerate any loophole in its
structure by which the enemy of faith could enter. Thus, if
the Church, by means of her discipline, expels from her body
those who are not true members of the Church, in order that
they shall not poison the Body corporate, so also must she deal
with the teacher who teaches that which is harmful to the
faith of the Church. Doctrinal discipline is a necessary form of
Church discipline. This doctrinal discipline — which is exercised
in every ordination vow, even of the simplest character — must,
however, remain all the time aware of the limits to its exercise,
due to the relative character of the authority of all ecclesiastical
doctrinal norms. Alongside of the power to "bind" there must
be room for freedom.

But in her effort to secure purity of doctrine the Church has
not been content to use this spiritual method, but she has
claimed the power of the State to achieve her end. The heretical
teacher was not only the object of spiritual Church discipline,
but was subject to police and judicial measures exercised by
the State. The heretic was burnt, or he was hindered and
punished in various ways in his natural and civic existence.
Although since the time of the Enlightenment and of the French
Revolution the State has usually withdrawn from this sphere,
yet the memory of mankind in the West has saddled the idea
of dogma with recollections of these State sanctions of strict
orthodoxy, and these memories are very tenacious; while the
practice of certain Churches, which, wherever they have the

DOGMA AND DOGMATICS

opportunity, tend to recall this misuse of State authority,
cannot fail to keep these memories alight.

The example of the Reformation Churches shows that this
incursion from the spiritual into the political sphere is not
only a tendency of the Roman Catholic understanding of
dogma, but that again and again it slips into the Church, due
to man's mistaken desire for security. To the extent in which
the prestige of dogma grows does this danger become acute,
although almost everywhere the Church now has to be content
with very modified political and civil sanctions. This digression,
which belongs rather to the sphere of Church history than to
that of dogmatics, should not be regarded as wholly irrelevant
where we are concerned to exhibit both the authority and the
limits of dogma as the point of reference for dogmatics.

CHAPTER 8

DOGMATICS AS A SCIENCE^

As soon as it has been recognized that dogmatics is quite
different from a neutral religious study of the doctrine of any
particular religion, as, for instance, of the Christian religion,
as soon as we have understood that dogmatics has its own
"place" within the life of the Church — that it is itself a mode
of knowledge of faith, and that its aim is to formulate the
doctrine of the Church, of the Divine revelation, in accordance
with divine truth, then the question is bound to arise: Can
dogmatics be regarded as a science ?

As a mode of Christian doctrine, as a function of the Church
itself, dogmatics has primarily no interest in being called a
"science". Its primary tendency is certainly not in the direction
of intellectual research, but in the direction of the fellowship
of faith and the preaching of the Church. The earliest theology
of the Church betrays no "academic" aspirations of any kind.
It is, therefore, really an open question whether dogmatics can
have an interest in being called a "science" and in having to
satisfy any kind of intellectual criteria.

When we turn to this subject we are not thinking of re-
opening the discussion of the problem of "Religion and Science",
at least, not in the sense in which this is usually understood:
can faith be combined with the truths of science, or are not
the statements of faith rendered questionable, or even mistaken
by the discoveries of science? These questions have been
thoroughly discussed in another connexion.^ The result of that
critical examination was that it became clear that a conflict
between religion and science could only arise, and has only
arisen, out of a misunderstanding either on the part of religion
or of science.

Our present question is a different one : namely, whether the
service which dogmatics has to render to the Church obliges it
to apply scientific criteria and methods, or, to put it in other
terms, whether the very element which distinguishes dogmatics
from faith does not make it necessary for dogmatics to enter
into the realm of science {i.e. scientific criticism), and thus to use

' Wissenschaft has a much wider sense in Crerman than in English. The
author's meaning comes out plainly in this chapter. (Tr.).
= Offeiibayung mid \'cyuuiift, Chapters i8-i2.

DOGMATICS AS A SCIENCE

its criteria and its methods ? It would reveal a complete mis-
understanding of faith were we to give an unhesitating affirma-
tive answer to this question, by appealing to the argument
that even theology is concerned with truth; but where truth
is envisaged, there science must come into the picture. This
brings out a very widespread, and very deeply rooted mis-
understanding, which has done serious harm not only to
theology but still more to faith and to the Church.

The Christian Faith itself is wholly directed towards Truth;
but who would care to maintain that the true knowledge of
faith is scientific knowledge! Science leads to truth of a quite
definite kind; the truth of faith is of a wholly different order.
The Christ who says "I am the Truth" certainly does not mean
by this that He, as this Truth, is the Object of scientific know-
ledge. The truth of faith, in the sense in which the Bible uses
the term, is "truth as encounter", truth in the dimension of
the person, "Thou-I", but not in the "thing"-dimension.i The
truth which fuith perceives and grasps is a personal self-
disclosure, the truth of revelation, not the truth which can be
discovered by research and the use of the intellect.

At first sight, therefore, this contrast seems to suggest a
negative answer to the question : Can dogmatics be regarded as
a science ? And should it be thus regarded ? in spite of the title,
hallowed by tradition, of Theo-logy, "divine science". Know-
ledge of God, in the religious sense, is certainly not scientific
knowledge, and the God of revelation is certainly not an object
of scientific knowledge. In this respect Schleiermacher's protest
against the scholastic conception and practice of a "divine
science" was right, even though his conception of faith did not
agree with that of the New Testament, nor did his own theory
of faith agree with the Biblical doctrine, since his thought lacks
the objective content of truth, the fact that the divine Self-
revelation confronts us as objective ReaUty.

But we may grant that he is right in contending that dog-
matics is distinguished from faith as the process of reflection
is distinguished from all that is non-reflective and immediate.
This "immediateness" of faith is certainly not the "pious
feeling" of "absolute dependence", but the encounter of the
human person — of that personal centre which the Bible calls
the "heart" — with the Person of God, in His personal self-
revelation in Jesus Christ. This revelation is the "Word of
God", towards which faith is directed, which it grasps and by

' Cf. my book Wahrkeit als Begegnung, 1938.
61

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

which it is created. But theology, dogmatics, is not this faith
itself — otherwise the theologian alone would be a true believer
— but theology is faith in its reflection in critical thought. '

We have already made it clear that any Confession which
becomes a "doctrine" is the fruit of a transition from the
dimension of the "person" into that of a "thing", and indeed
that it consists in this change. God, instead of being addressed,
is spoken about; He is the object of doctrine. The further this
process of refraction of immediacy goes the more impersonal
does the truth become, the more does the knowledge of faith
approximate to other forms of "secular" knowledge, the more
impersonally objective and remote does it become. A further
sign of theological reflection points in the same direction: the
more that theological ideas become intellectual concepts, the
more abstract do they become, the less do they resemble the
vital concreteness of the Biblical way of teaching, especially
that of Jesus Himself.

So far as this happens, however, the theological definition of
ideas, and its ways of teaching, approaches that of the "scienti-
fic" or "academic" teacher. It shares with that kind of teaching
the effort to be accurate and precise, and strictly logical
in the connexion of thought. The ideas are expounded clearly
in definitions, and they lose that fluidity which suggests variety
of meaning, akin to poetic speech, which is proper to the
directness of the witness of faith. Its "edges" become sharp
and hard, and in so doing its connexion can be presented in
a rational manner; it is a building composed of stones which
are well-hewn and can be fitted faultlessly together. The
connexion becomes, or tries to become, a system; the historico-
dynamic element becomes entangled in a net of timeless-logical
conceptions. Above all, the personal categories are smothered
by impersonal objective categories.

All this means that doctrine becomes, so to speak, capable
of assuming scientific form. Whether this means that we ought
to call dogmatics "scientific" or not is finally a question of
terminology; is it not the case that even at the present day
controversy still rages round the "scientific" character of
philosophy? In any case dogmatics cannot become an inde-
pendent "positive science", so long as it does not forget its
origin and its aim, since it does not operate and represent a

' It must be because he does not recognize this distinction that Karl Earth,
in his observations on "Dogmatics as a Science", ventures to say: "The fear of
Scholasticism is the mark of the false prophet" (Kirchl. Dogm. I, i, p. 296).

DOGMATICS AS A SCIENCE

given finite object, because all its efforts are directed towards
the ultimate Truth behind all that exists. Its main concern is
for that Truth which is not an "It", not a state of affairs, a
situation, but absolute Subject, that Truth which cannot be
known in cool detachment, but only in the obedience and
confidence of faith.

In its relation to the Ultimate, the Absolute, which lies
behind all that is given and actual, dogmatics is like philosophy.
Its aim is not to establish facts, but to seek to discover the
ultimate and final truth behind the facts, which is both the
origin and the aim of all that is. In contrast to all philosophy,
however, theology does not need to seek for this truth by its
own efforts after knowledge ; its task is rather to illuminate by
means of thought that revelation which is given to man through
faith.

Like philosophy, it is concerned with the Eternal Logos, but
in contrast to philosophy it is concerned with the Logos which
became flesh ; therefore it is not concerned with a timeless and
eternal Logos, but with one which has been revealed in history;
it is not concerned with an abstract idea, but with the Logos
who is the Son of the Father.

For all these reasons the "scientific" character of dogmatics,
if we want to use this terminology at all, is sui generis; it can be
compared with no other "science"; it must be measured by
its own criteria, and it operates with its own methods, peculiar
to itself, and unknown in any other science.

We should, of course, remind ourselves that, even apart from
dogmatics or the "science of faith", science itself is not a unity,
but a multiplicity of enterprises which take many forms, and
represents a variety of sciences which cannot be reduced to any
common denominator; this, indeed, comes out in the contrasts
between natural science and "intellectual science", ^ the science
of facts and the science of norms, causal science and the science
of values, historical science and the science of law.- These
differences between the sciences which exist outside the sphere
of dogmatics provide, it is true, certain analogies for the
difference between dogmatics and the other sciences, but they
are very remote analogies, or parables, which break down at
the decisive point.

From these considerations it has now become clear that the

I In English: "The Humanities" (Geisteswisscnschaft). (Tr.)
* Cf. Rickert: Die Gremen der naiurwissenschajtiichen Begriffsbildun^ anU
Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

scientific character of dogmatics varies a good deal; we have
also seen that the reason for this is the extent to which theo-
logical reflection moves away from, or towards, the immediacy
of faith itself. There is no doubt that the Epistle to the Romans
is more "dogmatic", more reflective, than the Parables of
Jesus. But who would maintain that this makes it a "scientific"
work? It is well known that certain important works on dog-
matics have grown out of catechisms, and the traces of their
origin rather help than hinder their usefulness; who, however,
can fix the point at which the non-"scientific" catechism
becomes the quasi-scientific masterpiece of dogmatic theology ?i
Here, too, we must be content with a proportional statement:
the more that reflection, exact definition, strictly logical
argument, reasoned classification, method and system pre-
dominate in Christian doctrine, the more "scientific" it be-
comes, and the further it moves from the original truth of
faith from which it proceeds, and to which it must continually
refer.

But how can this approximation to a "science" be of any
service to faith which has no use for science? Must not the
transformation, which, it cannot be disputed, takes place in the
knowledge of faith, when, and to the extent, in which it moves
into the medium of reflection, be felt as a direct loss for faith?
If the explanations of ideas which dogmatics accomplishes, and
the broad view which it attains through its systematic work,
take place at the cost of the preservation of personal faith and
the truth of faith — what, then, is the good of it? We have
already answered this question, and indeed in three ways.
Theological reflection, as we saw, is intended to serve the
purpose of making a distinction between the valid and the
genuine, and the non-valid and non-genuine (erroneous doc-
trine) ; its aim is also to transcend the remoteness of the Biblical
witness to revelation and to make this intelligible ("/oc«
theologica" of the Bible); finally its aim is to bridge the gulf
between secular and natural knowledge and the knowledge of
faith (extended Baptismal instruction).

A parable may make the position clear. As the analytical
chemist analyses in his retorts edibles which are offered for
.sale in the market-place, and thus is able to distinguish that
which has real food-value from all mere substitutes, yet in so

■ 'Ihc criterion which Barth proposes to enable us to distinguish "regular"
from "irregular" dogmatics, that is, the effort to achieve "wholeness" {op. cit.,
p. z<)2), does not express the essential element which distinguishes a catechism
from a work on Dogmatics.

DOGMATICS AS A SCIENCE

doing diverts the material intended for human nourishment
from its actual purpose, and indeed even destroys it, and yet
the result of all his methods of separation and examination
serve the nourishment of the people as a whole, so that which
the theologian clarifies, separates and re-unites, his dogmatic
concepts and his systematic processes, are not the "food" that
the believer needs, and not that which has to be preached, and
yet it is serviceable to the preacher and the pastor. We do not
preach — it is to be hoped — dogmatics, and yet what we learn
through dogmatics enriches and deepens our preaching, a
result which could hardly have been achieved without the study
of dogmatics. Yet in order to understand aright the second and
the third of the suggested functions of dogmatics, there is still
one final aspect to be considered, which will form the content
of the next chapter.

Before we do this, however, we must call attention to a
secondary, but not unessential service of dogmatic reflection
in respect of science. The Church, in the course of the centuries,
has found out by experience that in its origins, and for many
centuries in its preaching and its theology, it has not dis-
tinguished, or has not made an adequate distinction between
the cosmological material used by the primal knowledge of
revelation — the "alphabet" of the Biblical witness to revelation
— and the revelation itself. So the Church supported the ancient
view of the world which the Bible contains with the authority
of her witness to revelation, and she included all this within
her message, until the contradiction of modern science, which
was in the act of destroying this view of the world, made her
aware of her error.

But a mighty effort of thought and intellectual labour was
required to make the distinction between that view of the
world and the witness of faith, and still more, in order to re-
formulate the witness of the Bible in a new "alphabet", in
terms which do not contradict the results of modern science.
This process is still going on, and it seems possible that owing
to the continual progress being made by the sciences, it will
never cease. For this work of re-formulation, however, there
is need of thinking which issues, it is true, from faith, and yet,
at the same time, is able and willing to make the effort to know
the scientific process, in order to understand it, and in some
measure to stand above it and to take a larger view. A theo-
logical teacher who speaks about Adam and the Fall in terms
which it was right and natural for Augustine to use, leads the

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Church into the conflict between Rehgion and Science, which
is as disastrous as it is unnecessary.

At the heart of the matter, in the witness to revelation itself,
the Church never need be disturbed by the movement of
secular rational science. Science always moves upon the surface
dimension of secular knowledge, whereas faith is concerned
with the dimension of depth, where we are concerned with
Origin and Aim. But as the Biblical witness to revelation itself
could not escape from the ancient ideas of the nature of the
world then current, so the witness of revelation, at every period
in human history, must use ideas concerning the world — whether
they be cosmological or historical — which, if they are not to lead
to that unfortunate conflict, must correspond with the modern
scientific view of the world, or at least they must not contradict
it. In this sense dogmatics is the mediator between secular
science and the supernatural witness of faith. But at this
point we have already reached the final aspect which I have just
mentioned.

CHAPTER 9

THE CONTEMPORARY CHARACTER OF DOGMATICS

The Christian Church stands and falls with the confession,
"Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever", and
with the confession that the revelation and reconciliation
which have taken place in Him, have taken place i(f> d-noc.^, once
for all. To this extent doctrine is actually what the Roman
Catholic Church loves to call it: Theologia perennis. At all
periods of history, if faith be true and genuine, it makes itself
"contemporary" with Jesus Christ, with His Cross and His
Resurrection. Where revelation itself is concerned, there is no
room for the ideas of "progress" and "evolution". The Christian
Church cannot recognize any "progressive revelation". Neither
the fact that we look backwards to the preparatory revelation
of the Old Covenant, nor forwards to the Coming Kingdom and
the Advent of the Lord, can be used to support that idea.
The preparatory revelation, the prophetic one, culminated in
the Incarnation of the Word, and therefore cannot be continued.
But the Coming of the Kingdom, through the Parousia, is
described as a final event, and is thus protected from all con-
fusion with the idea of "progress".

There are no interim stages between the revelation which
has taken place in the story of Jesus and that revelation of the
End, when faith will pass into sight, "face to face". The
situation of the Church, of the community of believers, in
respect of their share in the truth of revelation, is, in principle,
always the same — at all periods of history — and that means that
the truth given to it is at all times, until the end of history, the
same. If the idea of the theologia perennis, the unchangeableness
of Christian doctrine and of the Christian Creed, means only this,
then it belongs in point of fact to the fundamental ideas in the
Confession of Faith. Whatever else may be altered, whatever
else may be exposed to the law of historical relativity, this one
element does not change, and is not relative.

And yet the Creed of the Church, theology, dogmatics,
ceaselessly alters, and indeed not merely in the Protestant
Churches, but — even though only secretly — even within the
Catholic Church. Although there is a remarkable continuity
of doctrine down the ages, and we still feel the theology of men
like Irenaeus and Augustine, and still more of Luther, Zwingli

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

and Calvin, to be so contemporary, so actual, so exemplary,
that again and again we feel impelled to sit at the feet of these
great masters as their eager disciples, yet we cannot ignore the
fact that we think differently and teach differently from them
and that we teach differently because we ought to do so, and
we cannot avoid it. This brings out the decisive fact — which
has already been sufficiently stressed — the fact that the Church
is not identical with the revelation itself, although it is a form
of revelation.

The fact that the doctrine of the Church is not the revelation
itself comes out, as we have seen, in the New Testament witness
to Christ Himself in the variety of the New Testament or
apostolic doctrines. John speaks a different language from
Paul; Paul uses different terms from Matthew. The content is
one, but in each case the "setting" is different. And yet even
in these writers we can already perceive that these varieties of
"setting" are due to their intellectual and historical environ-
ment. The statement is apt : "quidquid recipitur, modo recipientis
recipitur" . That is the irrevocable law of appropriation, which,
even where revelation is concerned, still has its own validity.
Here, then, in the realm of faith, what are the "modus
recipientis" and the changes which it introduces into the sphere
of doctrine by the changes due to historical development ?

At first we might think that this fact — namely, that the
doctrine is conditioned by the recipient — should refer only to one
who does not yet believe ; for instance, to the way in which Paul
the Missionary says of himself that "to the Jews he is a Jew"
and to "them that are without law" (that is, the heathen) "as
without law," in order that he "might save some".^ Undoubtedly
this is a very important aspect of the problem, and at the same
time it recognizes a very important task of the teaching Church.

As the Bible had to be translated by the missionary Church
into the most widely differing languages, and as this translation
work has been, and still is, one of the most important achieve-
ments of the Mission of the Church, so the Gospel has to be
continually re-translated into contemporary terms — a task
which the Church ought to take far more seriously than she has
done of late. But the problem which is involved in the indication
of the "modus recipientis" is still more comprehensive, and goes
a great deal deeper than merely "missionary translation".

We understand its depth only when we remember that faith
is a definite experience of self-knowledge; that is, we learn

I I Cor. 9: 21.

THE CONTEMPORARY CHARACTER OF DOGMATICS

to understand ourselves in the light of God and His revelation.
Even when confronted by the Word of God, man is not simply
"tabula rasa" , not an empty page upon which God now writes
His Word. Here, too, understanding is involved, which — like
all understanding — makes use of the "apperceptions" of the
human mind. And, moreover, what matters is not to understand
"something", but oneself. Only where the Word of God or the
revelation leads to a new understanding of oneself, does it
become "one's own", in the act of believing understanding it
is "appropriated". Thus even in the act of faith man is not
just an empty vessel into which something is simply poured
from the outside. The very act of faith itself is placed within
a "setting" in which the ideas with which man understands
anything at all, and with which above all he understands
himself, are not eliminated but are utilized and remoulded.

But these ideas vary more or less at different times. Language
changes, because ideas change, and the most profound change
takes place where we are dealing with man's understanding of
himself.^ The knowledge of faith is always involved in this
"setting" which conditions our ideas, and in man's contem-
porary view of himself. Even as Christian believers we are
children of our own time; we cannot say merely that we "used
to be", "before we became Christians". Certainly, if Jesus
Christ really lays hold on us in faith, we are no longer children
of our own day as we were before : Jesus Christ also changes this
"being-children-of-our-time" in us; but He does not sweep it
all away. Therefore even as Christian believers we use different
language from the believers of other days; we say the same
thing, but we express it differently. As preachers as well as
theologians we use, unavoidably, other conceptions.

To name only one example of a theologian who is here a
blameless witness, because he himself energetically repudiates
the idea of a "point of contact": the idea of "Subject" plays
a great part in the theology of Karl Barth — and indeed a very
favourable part, and one which helps to clarify the problem!
And yet this is an idea which, so far as I know, was never used
by any previous theologian. It is a conception which springs
from the Idealistic philosophy, from which Barth — like the
rest of us — has learned some essential truths. Or again, what a
necessary function is played by the idea of history in the
dogmatics of the present day — once more, a conception which
is practically wholly absent from the theology of older scholars.

' Cf. Bultman, Glauben und Verstehen, pp. 294, 312.
69

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

The same is true of ideas such as person, responsibility, decision,
community, act, etc.

Such ideas are necessary aids for the theologian, if he is to
make plain to himself and his contemporaries that which in
earlier days was intelligible in other terms, apart from these
ideas. Conversely, ideas which our forefathers in the Faith
used to express the truth we hold in common, must be freshly
translated by us, and be replaced by others, in order to make
clear what they meant. Thus the ideas of "substance", "person"
(in the Trinitarian sense) and "nature" played an absolutely
decisive part in ancient theology, but for us they are scarcely
intelligible, or, if used without commentary, lead to gross
misunderstanding. When we speak of the "Three Persons of
the Trinity", it sounds really heterodox and polytheistic to us,
yet the theologians of the Early Church did not mean it in this
way. The same is true of the idea of the divine and human
"Nature" of Jesus Christ. And such ideas have, as is well known,
become absolutely essential parts of dogma !

Now we understand why there is such a great need for
exposition of the Bible, and why "loci theologici" are necessary.
Even the Bible makes use of a set of ideas — or rather of a mass
of different sets of ideas from different periods — which are not
intelligible to us at first sight. The work of Bible translation is
not ended with that which usually goes by that name; it is
continued in the exposition of the Bible, and is completed in
the "loci theologici" of dogmatics. This means, therefore — ■
however daring this assertion may sound at first, still it cannot
be assailed — Dogmatics is Bible translation; or, Dogmatics
is the necessary preliminary work for that "Bible transla-
tion" in which the true living preaching of the Gospel must
consist.

The consideration of the truth of the "modus recipientis"
also throws light on the third root of dogmatics : the extension
of instruction for Baptism to thoughtful Christian believers.
Why is it needful to go further than the elementary instruction
given to catechumens? What do we mean when we say that
among thoughtful Christian people there are questions which
dogmatics ought to answer, so that the simple instruction
contained in the Catechism leads to the Institutio religionis
christianae ? What is there to ask where revelation is concerned ?
Questions arise first of all because the "appropriation" has been
only partially accomplished. The very scheme of question and
answer in a catechism is designed to help the process of "appro-

THE CONTEMPORARY CHARACTER OF DOGMATICS

priation". Christian doctrine must not be simply "ingrafted",^
we must make it our own, and this means that it must be the
answer to a question. Only that which answers our own
questions can become our ozem. The more living and rich the
mind which the Gospel encounters, the more questions does it
arouse which must be answered if the Gospel is to be really
made our own. But the questions vary with varying times,
because their interests are different, and above all because man's
view of himself is different at each period.

This is the cause of the demand for "contemporaneousness"
in theology, which also implies the principle of "contempor-
aneousness" as the criterion of sound, good, living theology.
What is so often offered to us as "genuinely Biblical theology"
is the very opposite: it is a stale lifeless theology, which is
unable to make the Gospel intelligible in the language of the
day; it is a theology which raises the suspicion that the faith
behind it has not been truly appropriated — in any case, it is
a theology whicji is unable to fulfil its task. These theologians
would like most of all to use the "language of Canaan", that is,
they would really prefer not to translate the Bible at all. They
do not want to do so because they are unable to make the
message of the Bible fully their own.

Certainly this demand for a "contemporary" presentation
of Christian truth contains a danger — the danger of betrayal
of the central concern of the Bible. This is the danger of every
translation: "Toute traduction est une trahison" is a witty
remark, but it has been put still more strongly in the phrase
"traduttore — traditore" . But to give up translation means to
abandon the effort to make the message our own ; even one who
"knows Greek" translates; even one who teaches in the con-
ceptions of Augustine's or Luther's or Calvin's dogmatics,
translates — only he does not translate into his own language,
but into the language of the fifth or the sixteenth century. We
cannot get rid of the danger of translation by trying to evade it.
But we must see the danger, and know how to meet it. This
is accomplished— as is the case in "faithful" translation in the
usual sense of the word — by continual reference to the "text",
in order to see what it really says ; a good translator does this
continually; he continually refers to the text, and then tries
to give a "faithful" rendering. The ideas which serve the
process of appropriation must remain subordinate to the
subject which is the writer's main concern. When these ideas

' Rom. 6: 9. (Tr.)
71

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

become independent, when they are erected into a system,
into a form or a mould, into which the content of the Christian
message is to be poured, there the Gospel has been violated.
In modern times we have two particularly clear and warning
examples : the freethinking theology, influenced in a speculative
manner by Hegel, and the Ritschlian theology influenced by
Kant and Lotze.^

Wherever dogmatics becomes a system, or is systematically
dominated by a fundamental idea — no matter how Biblical it
may be — then already there has been a fatal declension from
the attitude of the faithful translator. The very thing that
makes such an impression, and attracts people with good
brains: rigid unity of thought, in dogmatics is the infallible
sign of error. Revelation cannot be summed up in a system, not
even in a dialectical one. A system always implies that the
reason has forced ideas into a certain mould: it is the "imperial-
ism" of an idea, even when this idea claims to be "Biblical".
As faith means the destruction of human self-will, so also is it
the destruction of human systems. Dogmatics as a system,
even when it intends to be a system of revelation, is the dis-
guised dominion of the rational element over faith.

This brings us to one final question.

■ The latest developments in Theology provide us with another example:
the overshadowing of the Christian message by Heidegger's system of ideas in
the theology of R. Bultmann, which yet in many ways has done so much to
further this task of "translation".

CHAPTER 10

FAITH AND THOUGHT IN DOGMATICS

Not only the study and interpretation of dogmatics, but even
faith itself is a thinking process ; that is, it is thought determined
by revelation, by the Word of God. This is usually forgotten
when faith and thought are contrasted. Certainly, faith is not
only a process of thinking, but as a central act of the person
it is also willing and feeling. Faith, as the Apostle Paul puts it,
is vvocKo-q TTLGTeois — the "obedience of faith".

But when man answers God's Word of revelation, he also
accomplishes an act of thinking. Where there is speech, where
there is an answer, there also is thought. That confession of
Peter: "Verily Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God",
is a thought which expresses itself as a meaningful, grammatical,
logical sentence. Even faith is accomplished in ideas, and in
connexion with ideas: God is the Lord, or — in the primary
form — "Thou, O God, art my Lord".

To pray, to give God thanks, to praise God — all these are
acts of thought, thoughts of the heart. Even faith has clearly
connected ideas; it is not merely "pious feeling". Thus we
cannot distinguish theology, or dogmatics, from faith, by saying
that the one is a process of thought, while the other is not.
It would not help matters much to say that faith "is thinking
of a particular kind". We have indeed already seen (in the
previous chapter) that faith as "appropriation" is accomplished
through the use of the usual processes of thought, which again
is manifested in language. Faith does not speak with celestial
tongues, but with the words of ordinary speech: "Father",
"Lord", "Word", "Life", "Light", "doing", "speaking",
"hearing", "obeying", etc. Like the language of ordinary life,
so also the thought of ordinary life is not superseded by faith,
but it is utilized.

And yet without much consideration we know that in
theology, in dogmatics, thinking plays a far greater part than
in faith itself. A person who has little capacity for thinking can
still believe; to make a life-work of theology and dogmatics
presupposes a high degree of thinking power. The great
theologian does not differ from the rest of the members of the
Church by his greater faith, but by his greater powers of thought
in the service of faith. The distinctive characteristic of the

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

theologian within the Church is not that he is a believer, but
that he is a thinker. Where, then, does the difference lie between
the thinking of faith as such, and the believing thinking which
theology, dogmatics, produces? This question is not put in
the interests of psychology, but in that of the Church and of
personal religion. We must be aware of this difference, on the
one hand, in order not to make a false distinction between
faith and thought, and, on the other hand, in order that we may
not bind faith and dogmatics so closely together that it would
seem as though the theologian alone were an adult, or mature
Christian.

Up to this point we have been considering the difference
caused by the transition from one dimension to another, as
consisting mainly in the process of reflection which leads from
"thought-in-encounter" to "thinking-about-it". But this still
does not answer the question: "How is it, then, that through
this transition the part played by thought becomes so much
greater than it is in faith itself? We may, first of all, establish
this difference in a negative manner: this process of turning
to the "third person", and the impersonality which this
engenders, means that the personal element, the "heart" —
so long as the theological process of reflection goes on — is
practically ruled out. Now we are engaged with the matter in
thought, not in feeling and in will ; moreover the act of personal
decision, which is the act of faith, lies behind us as a completed
act. Thus reflection serves as a kind of eye-shade which prevents
us from looking at anything we do not need to see. Dogmatic
reflection is accomplished by a general process of abstracting all
those elements which do not help us to understand the subject
with which we are dealing as objectively and clearly as possible.

In positive terms this means: In the process of theological
reflection the intellectual element in our faith is developed still
further, and in isolation. The characteristic question which
determines theological work is: "What does this mean}" Faith
says: God is the Lord, or rather, "Thou, O God, art my Lord".
Now from this prayer, which is a confession of faith, theological
reflection abstracts the one element, the concept "Lord",
and asks: "Now, what does this mean?" — not: "What art
Thou saying to me, O God, here and now, in the very heart of
my being?" — but: "What does this mean as a whole? What is
the true content of this idea, 'God-Lord'?" The logical content
of the statement, or rather the logical content of one element in
this statement, is isolated, and made the object of reflection.

FAITH AND THOUGHT IN DOGMATICS

We ought not to be horrified at this fact, however, as though it
were something improper. Certainly, the Word of God is not
given to us for this purpose; but in order that the doctrine of
the Church about the Word of God should be sound, this
abstracting process of thought must be accomplished, which
in itself goes far beyond that which faith needs for clarity of
thought. Actually, then, it is as we surmised it would be: The
greater measure of intellectual labour, which distinguishes
theology, dogmatics, from the simple thinking of faith, is
conditioned by the process of reflection, by that transition into
the objective, impersonal dimension which makes both this
process of abstraction and the further analysis of the content
of ideas possible.

This is the first step which throws light on our problem —
but that is all. Now we know — dogmatics is the further develop-
ment of the element of thought or of logic which is given with
faith itself. This leads us to the further question: What, then,
takes place in^ this further development? We may reply,
perhaps, that "the idea is clarified" — or "the word 'Lord' is
made more intelligible". In point of fact this is the meaning
and purpose of this undertaking ; that should be plain by now.
This illumination or clarification is indeed the meaning of all
thinking. But the unsatisfactory point is this, that a content
which does not come from our own thinking but from revelation
is "clarified" by this very obviously human process, or at least
can be thus illuminated. If this really were the situation, then
within the sphere of the knowledge of faith we would have to
be very suspicious of this whole proceeding, and of the validity
and worth of its results. Now it cannot be denied that this kind
of thought does take place in the thought-forms of ordinary,
rational thinking, and, if we are to think at all, it cannot be
otherwise. It is good to know this, and to remind ourselves of it
frequently, in order that it may become evident how great —
how immense — is the part played by the purely rational
element, the logical power of thought in theological reflection
or dogmatics. It is actually the purely human faculty of thought
which qualifies the theologian for his work. The theologian
ought to remind himself of this when he writes about the
"sinful corruption of the human reason". Even if it is divine
revelation about which he is thinking, still this process of
reflection takes place by means of the natural human reason,
with its concepts and thought-forms and its logical processes of
proof,

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

But dogmatics is not only a process of thought about that
which is given in faith, it is at the same time believing thinking.
The theologian is fully justified in protesting against the idea
that his work is a purely rational consideration of the truths
of faith — just as he certainly has no right to protest against the
truth that rational thought plays a great part in his work.
What, however, is added in theological thinking, that which
differentiates this from all other kinds of thought, is the
continual reference to the "subject" itself which is grasped by
faith: a reference which, for its part, can only be accomplished
in faith. The true theologian does not only think about the
Faith and about the revelation given in faith, but in the very
act of thinking he continually renews the act of faith; as a
believing man he turns his attention to the revelation granted
to faith.

Thus the act of thought in dogmatics may be compared with
a movement which arises through the activity of two differently
directed forces, for instance, one tangential and the other
centripetal. The purely rational element of thought, logic, has
the tendency to go straight forward from each given point;
but faith continually prevents this straightforward movement
by its pull towards the Centre. So instead of a movement in a
straight line there arises a circular movement around the
Centre — and that is a picture of real theological thinking.
Theological thinking is a rational movement of thought, whose
rational tendency at every point is continually being deflected,
checked, or disturbed by faith. Where the rational element is
not effective there is no movement of thought, no theology;
where the rational element alone is at work, there arises a
rational, speculative theology, which leads away from the truth
of revelation. Only where faith and rationality are rightly
interlocked can we have true theology, good dogmatics.

For this very reason systematic unity, and logic pushed to
an extreme, in the absolute sense of the word, are a sign of a
false tendency in theological work. Certainly there is no other
way of thinking than one which is directed towards unity, and
strives after logical sequence. But these two most essential
marks of rationality would, if taken alone, make an end of
theology as the consideration of revelation, just as to ignore
them would make an end of thinking, even of theological
thinking. Only the constant refraction of the systematic unity
and the logical sequence by the direct relation of faith to the
revelation itself, produces a way of thinking which may be

FAITH AND THOUGHT IN DOGMATICS

described as "believing thinking", which produces dogmatics.
The more exact analysis of the close interlocking of the act of
thought with the act of faith in the thinking of the theologian,
must, in so far as it is at all possible and necessary, be left to a
special theological Theory of Knowledge.'

' Important beginnings of a theological epistemology of this kind may be
found in Heim, Glaube und Denken; in Bultmann, Glanben und Verstehen; and
in E. Burnier, Bible et theologie — especially in the chapters "Le caractere de la
valeur epistemologique du temoignage biblique" and "La parole de Dieu et
I'analogie de la foi".

CHAPTER II

THE CONCEPT AND THE TASK OF DOGMATICS

We must now try to summarize all that we have been saying
in our attempt to answer the question : What, then, is dogmatics ?
And what is the service we should expect it to render?

Dogmatics is a particular form of Christian doctrine. As
doctrine it is, like all doctrine, something prescribed for thought.
Its aim is right thinking; its intention is that we should think
along certain prescribed lines — and no other — about the sub-
jects with which Christian doctrine deals. Because it is Christian
doctrine, the virtual "subject" of dogmatics is the Church:
this is what the Church teaches. Dogmatics, however, is not
the only form of Christian doctrine. In the main, the primary
teaching ministry of the Church is not exercised by the teaching
of dogma. The Church teaches in her evangelistic work, in her
preaching in the parish, in the teaching of young people,
children and adults ; she teaches also in the exercise of pastoral
work. But in all these other ways of teaching the doctrinal
element is not emphasized to the same extent as in dogmatics,
hence it does not predominate.

The teaching office of the Church is graded, from the exercise
of her pastoral ministry and the act of preaching to the 'Tn-
struction of Adult Candidates for Confirmation". Dogmatics is
the next stage, and the final one. In it the doctrinal (or "teach-
ing") element is central, and all the other elements, proper to
other forms of Christian teaching — which may even be stressed
more fully than the doctrinal element — are pushed out of sight.
It is not the aim of dogmatics — as such, and directly — to
convert, edify, warn, restore, nor even to help people to be
better Christians. If dogmatics does effect any of these ends,
this does not take place because it has been deliberately sought ;
rather it is a by-product, even though it is not against the
general intention.

The interest of dogmatics is wholly doctrinal, that is, it is
concerned with right thinking. In order to be able to do this
aright, dogmatics has to look away from much towards which
otherwise the teaching of the Church is directed. It is, there-
fore, so to speak, the logical function of the Church, with all the
advantages and disadvantages of this specialization.

THE CONCEPT AND THE TASK OF DOGMATICS

This logical element — that is, the clear definition of the
Church's teaching — is developed to a comparatively high state
of completeness within the life of the Church; at least, if we
may put it so, the Church aims at this perfect clarity and com-
pleteness; above all, at a clarity of thought which will present
Christian truth with the utmost clearness and comprehensive-
ness, in the form of a well-knit system.

Like all Christian teaching, dogmatics is based upon revela-
tion. In contrast to the other teaching activity of the Church,
however, it is the task of dogmatics to make the basis of Chris-
tian doctrine in the revelation itself the object of its teaching.
One of its most essential characteristics, and most important
criteria of its usefulness, is the fact that the basis of Christian
doctrine, or doctrinal statements, is made plain in revelation, and
that the specific authority which all Christian doctrine claims
for itself is derived from this source alone. This is the meaning
of that process of proof which has been exercised throughout
the whole history of dogmatics: that of the "Proof from Holy
Scripture".'

Even if this process has been discredited, on the one hand by
its arbitrary character, and on the other by its verbal legalism,
yet it does contain the right idea, namely, that there can be no
other basis for Christian doctrine than that which comes from
revelation, that it should seek no other argument for its basis
than this, but that this basis in revelation determines the
validity of each of its statements. To show the necessary con-
nexion of Christian doctrine with this basis in revelation
constitutes for dogmatics what in the other sciences would be
regarded as logical proof, and the relation to the experience of
reality.

Since, however, Christian doctrine, like all doctrine, develops
by means of thinking, and the truth of revelation is related to
the experience of reality, dogmatics, for its part, also uses those
criteria and principles of secular science as secondary criteria
and principles. Hence its statements must not only not contra-
dict the truth of revelation, but also they must not contradict
one another, nor must they be in contradiction to reahty; that
is, they must not be of such a character that in order to affirm
them, actual facts have to be denied or distorted.

Revelation, it is true, stands in opposition to human reality,
just as the Divine Goodness is in opposition to the sinfulness of

' Cf. the observations of J. C. K. von Hofmann in the Introduction to his
great work, Der Schriftbeweis , Vol. 1, pp. 3-32, which are still valuable.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

man. But where this sinful reality is mentioned from the stand-
point of revelation, nothing is said about it that contradicts
the experience of reality, but on the contrary, it is precisely
this experienced and experiential reality which is disclosed in
its opposition to the truth. The criterion of reality, therefore,
like the logical one, applies also to Christian doctrine, and
especially to dogmatics.

Dogmatics differs from the rest of Christian teaching in the
fact that it presupposes this as something "given", and leans
upon this "given" element as a support. Dogmatics presupposes
the teaching Church — even apart from itself — it is therefore
doctrine, which presupposes the teaching which is always going
on, and has been going on in the past. It is, so to say, a secondary
form of doctrine: it is teaching which defines the "true" doc-
trine. It is accomplished as the basis and the criticism of
Christian doctrine as a whole. It does this, however, only from
a definite standpoint, proper to itself, and one which distin-
guishes it from all the other teaching functions of the Church :
namely, from the point of view of the true content of doctrine.
It bases and examines the doctrinal content of the doctrine which
is always being taught within the Church.

Hence, as its name suggests, it has a very close relation with
the dogma of the Church, with the doctrinal confession of the
Church, in which the Church gives an account — both to itself
and to the world — of the content of its teaching. This close
relation is twofold in character. On the one hand dogmatics
presupposes dogma— the summary of the content of the
doctrine of the Church in the form of a Confession — as that
which is given to it, and as that which the Church wills to be
understood as the norm of all its teaching, including its dogmatic
teaching. In this sense the dogma, or the doctrinal confession of
the Church, is not merely the starting-point and the material of
dogmatics, but at the same time it is its norm. Since, however,
this norm may always only be conceived by the Church as
conditioned, and not as unconditioned, there falls to dogmatics
a second task, namely, that of critically examining the dogma
which the Church lays before it, and, when necessary, of
providing a better dogma.

Dogmatics accomplishes this examination on the basis of
that form of Christian doctrine, which is also the source and the
norm of its teaching of every other form of Christian doctrine,
on the basis of the original witness to revelation, namely, the
doctrine of Scripture. Above all the teaching of the Church,

THE CONCEPT AND THE TASK OF DOGMATICS

even above all dogma or doctrinal confession, stands Holy
Scripture. This is the source of revelation for the Church; for
the Church knows the fact of revelation simply and solely
through the Holy Scriptures. Scripture, however, is not only the
source of all Christian doctrine, but it is also its norm, in so far
as the original witness is the source of all the testimony of the
Church. It owes this normative dignity and power to the fact
that the original witness itself has a share in the primary his-
torical revelation, in the history of revelation of Jesus Christ.
But the norm of Scripture, too, understood as the doctrinal
norm, is not unconditioned, but conditioned: namely, it is
conditioned by that which also forms its basis: the revelation,
Jesus Christ Himself.

As it is part of the task of dogma to clarify and examine the
relation of teaching to dogma, to the Confession of Faith of the
Church, so also it is part of its work to distinguish within the
Scriptures themselves that which is binding and valid from
that which is conditioned by human and contemporary circum-
stances. The norm and the criteria of this distinction, however,
are never acquired save from Scripture itself. Only from the
Bible itself is it possible to perceive what is truly Biblical, only
from revelation that which is truly in accordance with revela-
tion. This is why it is impossible to apply the "Proof from
Scripture" in its traditional legalistic form, which presupposes
the infallibility of the actual Bible text.

Because dogmatics has a definite place within the Church it
is necessarily confessional. By this we do not mean that morbid
"ConfessionaUsm", which mistakenly sets up its own Con-
fession as an absolute, without considering that every Church
and every theology is only moving towards the goal, and has
not yet attained it. Rather the genuinely confessional character
of dogmatics signifies that each person who "thinks" in the
service of the Church, is first of all under an obligation to the
form of the Church, and the doctrine of the Church, through
which he has received his own faith. A "confessional" attitude
of this kind means thankfulness and loyalty towards those
from whom we have received our faith. Hence the dogmatics
which is here presented is consciously Reformed Church doc-
trine. Its concern is to preserve and to emphasize the particular
truth of the divine revelation which has been given to the
Reformers, and among them, above all to Zwingli, Calvin, and
their descendants.

This system of dogmatics, however, is under too profound an

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

obligation to the absolute divine truth, to make this confes-
sional loyalty into the decisive principle of a final court of
appeal. It is not for us to reproduce the doctrine of Zwingli or
of Calvin, but to seek the truth, and to give honour to the
truth, even if this may lead us, at one point or another, to
speak against Zwingli and Calvin, and for Luther, or even
against the doctrine of the Reformers as a whole. In spite of
confessional loyalty, we must retain freedom to learn from all
the teachers of the Church, and to learn from all Churches.
Thought that is in genuine harmony with the spirit of the
Reformation cannot be "cabin'd, cribb'd, and confin'd" by
"Confessionalism" as a principle.

On the other hand, dogmatics needs to be studied in the
spacious setting of a truly "oecumenical" spirit, because know-
ledge of divine truth is present in all Churches, and because
every Church has had some special part of the knowledge of the
truth given to it. Truly (ecumenical dogmatics, however, has no
connexion with that cloudy "oecumenism" which tries to distil
an extract from all the Creeds which will not contradict any of
them. Just as we must not confuse the truly "Confessional"
point of view with "Confessionalism", so that which is truly
"oecumenical" must not be confused with a supra-confessional
eclecticism. In the last resort we are not concerned with this or
that ecclesiastical confession, neither Reformed nor Lutheran,
nor with any other, but solely with the truth which has been
revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

To find this, the different confessions may do us good service:
the one which is our own, that of the Reformed Churches first
of all, and after that the others; but we are not bound to any
one of them. We seek the Truth alone, and not any agreed
ecclesiastical formula, whether it be offered us by our own, or
by one of the other Confessions, or by none of them. Above all,
the dogmatics which is under an obligation to the Truth alone
must guard against all national or continental regionalism, for
which the European or the English or the American point of
view would be more important than to be in the Truth.

The service which dogmatics, as the "logical function of the
teaching Church", has to render is twofold: clarification and
translation. Dogmatics cannot "make disciples";' it can only
serve the Church — whose work it is to make disciples through
its teaching — by the clarification of the ideas with which it
works, by teaching her to distinguish the false from the true,

' Matt. 28: ly.
82

THE CONCEPT AND THE TASK OF DOGMATICS

the half-true from the true understanding of the Gospel. And it
can help individual believers in their faith by answering the
questions which the doctrine of the Church raises in their
minds. The fact that in order to do this the Church must give a
far more abstract form to her teaching than is and should be
the case in the practical teaching activity of the Church, consti-
tutes, it is true, a danger; but it should be no hindrance. The
more plainly we see the distinctive character of dogmatic, as
compared with the practical teaching activity of the Church,
carried on by preaching, catechetical instruction, and in the
"cure of souls", the less danger will there be; conversely,
where this distinction is ignored, where the teaching activity of
the Church is practically equated with dogmatics, there the
danger of a sterile intellectualism may become a real danger to
the life of the Church.

The second service dogmatics can render is that of "Bible
translation". As the exegete continues the work of the trans-
lator, by paraphrasing the translated text, and thus bringing it
nearer to the understanding, so the dogmatic theologian con-
tinues the labours of the exegete by a kind of "collective
paraphrase of the Bible". He must venture to listen to that
which Isaiah, Matthew and John say, and put it together, in
order to discern the Word of God behind the words of the
Apostles. Thus he must venture to understand the Word
spoken so long ago as a contemporary word ; for it is only as a
word for our own day that it can be understood, and made
intelligible. Through this "collective paraphrase of the Bible"
the dogmatic theologian serves the expositor of the Bible, as he
first of all has learned from the expositor of the Bible, and has
received from him, hence he also renders a service to the
preacher and pastor, who in order to speak intelligibly must not
speak in the language of Isaiah or of Paul, but in the language
of the present day. The transference of the Word of the Bible
into the thought-categories of our own day — that is the only
possibility of real appropriation. The theologian's understand-
ing of the Bible comes out — paradoxically — in the very fact
that he does not use the language of the Bible.

This "translation" work of dogmatics can easily lead to error,
if the dogmatic theologian does not thoroughly understand the
thought of his own day. That is why the task of dogmatics
presupposes that of "apologetics", the discussion with the
ideologies and substitutes for faith of his own day. Only one
who has wrestled with the mind of his own day, and who knows

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the opposition between Biblical and "modern" thought, is in a
position to make Biblical doctrine intelligible to the man of
the present day, without compromising with modern thought.
The dogmatic theologian must walk along the narrow knife-
edge between two precipices: the wrong "offence" of being
unintelHgible, of teaching a doctrine which does not "fit", on
the one hand, and the avoidance of the genuine "Offence" of
the Cross on the other.

Dogmatics, therefore, is doctrine based upon the divine
revelation, thus upon absolute Truth. Hence it shares the
claim of the Word of God to be absolute. This claim is neither
foolish nor arrogant, because this Truth has not been created
by man. All Christian doctrine, including dogmatics, is "speak-
ing the divine Word after Him". But this "speaking", since it
is human, also shares in the relativity of all that is human. "We
have this treasure in earthen vessels", ' our knowledge is partial. 2
Only a system of dogmatics which is always aware of both these
facts can render its service aright. If it forgets the first, then it
becomes an individualistic "religious conception", which is
without authority; if it forgets the second, then it becomes
guilty of idolizing human forms of thought. Thus as reflexion
upon the Word of God, given to faith, it has a twofold relative
element.

As reflexion, as the thinking of a believer about the content
of faith, as the specialized logical function of the Church,
dogmatics is, however, also, over against the believing existence
as a whole, an abstraction, something which has been "split
off". There is no such thing as "theological existence"; there is
only theological thinking and believing existence. While a man
thinks as a dogmatic theologian, as in every other act of re-
flexion, he stands outside the active, "Thou-related" reality,
even though it may be true that only a person who belongs to
the Christian Church can be a good theologian, and therefore,
in reality, stands in that twofold relationship with the "Thou",
which is called faith in God, and love to our neighbour. In the
act of thought, the theologian does not "live" in this vital
reality, but he "reflects upon it". Hence it is possible to be a
good theologian but a bad Christian, since it is only the logical
side, the "thinking" aspect of faith, which has been fully
developed, while the other, that of the personal relation to God
and our neighbour remains "under-nourished". This is not

' 2 Cor. 4:7. ^ I Cor. 13: 9.

THE CONCEPT AND THE TASK OF DOGMATICS

inevitable ; it ought not to be so ; but unfortunately it frequently
is so.

The remembrance of this always fatal possibility, and of the
fact that again and again this possibility becomes a fact, must
make the theologian humble. For one who is intellectually
gifted, it is so much easier to be a Christian in the sphere of
thought than in that of practical behaviour; and yet the good
theologian knows very well that what counts before God is not
merely what one thinks, but what one thinks with such faith
that it becomes act. For only that faith counts "which worketh
through love ".I

Thus in two directions we see the limitations of dogmatics. It
is not the mistress, but the servant of faith and of the com-
munity of believers ; and its service is no less, but also no more,
than the service of thought to faith. Its high dignity consists in
the fact that it is a service to the highest final truth, to that
truth which is the same as true love, and it is this which gives
it the highest place in the realm of thought. But the fact that it
is no more than this service of thought — which, as such, does not
maintain that love and loyalty which must be expected from
the Christian, is its limitation; a dogmatic which is aware of
this, shows it is genuine. The dogmatic theologian who does not
find that his work drives him to pray frequently and urgently,
from his heart: "God, be merciful to me a sinner", is scarcely
fit for his job.

• Gal. 5: 6.

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

(l) THEOLOGY AND DOGMATICS

Whereas at the present day we take it for granted that
dogmatics, the science of the doctrine of the Church, is one
among several other theological "sciences", in earlier times this
was not the case. Theology as a comprehensive term covering
various intellectual studies connected with the Bible, and in
the service of the Church, is a modern idea.^

The earliest use of the term occurs in Greek philosophy
where deoXoyidc is used primarily of the speech of poets about
divine things. The view that Aristotle already adumbrated a
philosophical theology seems scarcely tenable. But we may say
that this was true of Stoicism, and especially of Neoplatonism,
in which the doctrine of God is the foundation of the whole
philosophical structure. Philo is the bridge between the philo-
sophy of religion of late antiquity and Christian theology. For
him Moses is "the" theologian par excellence, who has pene-
trated most profoundly into the Divine Wisdom. In the patristic
period a QeoXoyo? was one who participated in the development
of the doctrine of the Church, of dogma. But far into the period
of the Middle Ages dogmatics was described by the terms
sancta doctrina, and not by "theology", while "theologia", the
doctrine of God in the narrower sense, was regarded as one
section of the sancta doctrina. In the later Scholastic period
"theologia" gradually came to be identified with dogmatics,
although this latter term was not used. Even the theologians of
the period of the Reformation carry on this terminology. They
distinguish, it is true, different kinds of theology: the theologia
archetypa, the knowledge that God has of Himself, and the
"theologia ectypa", the knowledge of God which comes into
existence in the mind and spirit of man, and in the latter again
they make the distinction between theologia naturalis and
theologia revelata. But in their thought, too, there was no idea
of a number of theological sciences, as, for instance, of exegesis
alongside of dogmatic theology. Neither in the Early Church,
which indeed from the days of the School of Antioch, pro-
duced outstanding examples of Biblical theology, nor at
the period of the Reformation (whose theologians construct
their system of truth — at least during the actual time of the

' Cf. Nitzsch-Stephan, Lehrhuch der ev. Dogmatik — Introduction — and Prot.
Realenzyklopddie, XXI, pp. 901-13.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Reformation — entirely upon Biblical exegesis) did men ever
reflect upon the relation between dogmatics and exegesis. Only
with the rise of historical Biblical criticism, and with the more
or less independent development of other theological discip-
lines, such as Church History, the History of Dogma, and
Practical Theology, does reflection begin on the relation be-
tween these various intellectual undertakings, and the idea of
"Theology" comes into being as the all-inclusive term for all
the intellectual work which deals with the Bible and the
Church. Only now does it become necessary to coin a special
term to describe what had previously been regarded simply as
"theology", the idea of "theologia dogmatica" . Speaking broadly,
this took place in the first half of the eighteenth century, from
the time of Pfaff and Buddaeus.

Schleiermacher made a great contribution in this sphere, for
he was the first theologian to conceive theology as a unity, and
to try to present the various theological disciplines as a coherent
whole. There is no doubt of the service he has rendered in this
field; but whether, in so doing, he really rendered a service to
the Church is an open question. From his Encyclopaedia, in
particular, in which he places Dogmatics as an historical
discipline as subordinate to a philosophical theology — it is
evident that in this work he was guided by principles which
have nothing to do with Biblical Truth. The division of theology
into three parts: Historical, Systematic, and Practical which
has become usual since Schleiermacher's time, corresponds, it
is true, to the practical need for classification and order, but it
has little intellectual or ecclesiastical significance. Exegetical
theology is not simply an historical discipline, in so far as it
takes place "within the sphere of the Church" as the exposition
of those who themselves participate in that which they expound.
Conversely, dogmatics cannot simply be distinguished from
exegetical work as "systematic" theology, since it is not only
founded upon ejtegesis, but is continually being accomplished
as exegesis. Likewise the distinction between Practical and
Systematic Theology cannot be fully achieved, in so far as —
for instance, in the doctrine of the Church — the process of
dogmatic reflection passes into the realm of Practical Theology,
and Practical Theology also develops out of Dogmatic Theology.
Further, there is the fact that the various disciplines are deter-
mined by their existence in the Church in very varying degrees,
down to the extreme instance of the purely secular secondary
studies, such as the grammar of the Biblical languages, archae-

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

ology, etc. On the "scientific" character of the theology proper
to the Church, see pp. 60 ff.

(2) ON THE HISTORY OF DOGMATICS^

From what has just been said it is evident that it is not
possible to make a sharp distinction between dogmatic theology
and practical, ecclesiastical doctrine. Already within the New
Testament itself the extent of reflection within the various
groups of writings varies a great deal. The Epistle to the
Romans is obviously much more "dogmatic" than the Synoptic
Gospels, or the Epistles of Peter or James. But real dogmatic
thinking begins as discussions with Greek philosophy, that is
with the Apologists. Yet none of them, and none of the great
theologians of the second century, ever undertook to make a
systematic statement of the whole of Christian doctrine. The
first to do so was Origen, in his work "De pHncipiis" , a work
which we might describe as the first work of Christian dogmatics.
But — apart from the Catechetical works of Cyril, which were
intended rather to serve the purposes of practical instruction,
and the Little Handbook of Augustine — this first attempt re-
mained completely isolated, both in the East and in the West,
and only found a continuation in the n-qyri yvcoaecvg of St. John
of Damascus.

The Church Fathers of the third, fourth and fifth centuries
produced, it is true, formidable works of dogmatics, but
they did not produce any single comprehensive "Dogmatics".
Even the mediaeval theologians did not at first feel this need,
but they occupied themselves with the treatment of individual
problems which seemed to them important, most of which were
strongly controversial in character. An exception is the great
systematic work of John Scotus Erigena, De divisione naturae,
which, however, represents rather a Neoplatonist philosophy of
religion than a work of Christian dogmatics. It was Peter
Lombard who created the classical type of Western dogmatics
in his work, Sententiarum lihri IV, which remained a standard
work even for the dogmatics of the Reformation period, and
still more so for that of the Post-Reformation. Certainly the
first work of dogmatics of the Reformation period, Melanchthon's
Loci theologici, to this extent constitutes an exception, since it
does not deal with the whole of Christian (Biblical) doctrine,

' No "History of Dogmatics" has yet been written; all that we have at
present are, on the one hand, the History of Dogma of the patristic period, and
descriptions of mediaeval Scholasticism, and, on the other hand, the History
of Protestant Theology, such as those of Gass, Dorner, Pfleiderer, Frank, etc.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

like that of the Lombard and the great mediaeval Scholastic
theologians who followed him, but merely with special "loci",
which were particularly important for the message of the
Reformation; Calvin, in his Institutes, returned to the earlier
classical line of dogmatics. While the early Lutherans followed
the example of Melanchthon, later on both Lutherans and
Calvinists carried on the tradition of the comprehensive presen-
tation which became the classical type, which begins with
the Doctrine of God, and countless summaries of dogmatics
appeared during the course of the seventeenth and the first half
of the eighteenth centuries, under the most varied titles, in
both Protestant Confessions.

The first break in this dogmatic treatment of doctrine was
made by Pietism; the second came from the Enlightenment.
The Pietist theologian replaced dogmatic doctrine by practical
Christian instruction or by Biblical exegesis ; the thinkers of the
Enlightenment period, having become uncertain of the revealed
basis of the Christian Faith, turned in the direction of the
teaching of the Philosophy of Religion. With Schleiermacher
there begins — (he, indeed, only did so formally, but his suc-
cessors to some extent at least did so actually) — a return to the
Christian presentation of doctrine, to Dogmatics. Even where
the actual basis was rather that of philosophical Idealism than
of the Christian Faith, as, for instance, with Biedermann, still
the schema of classical dogmatics is retained, until the gulf be-
tween the general philosophy of religion and the basis of revealed
Christianity became so evident that even this traditional form
broke down. Within a theological school such as the "religions-
geschichtliche" there could no longer be any question of real
Christian dogmatics.^ But this does not mean that the line of
development of the genuine Christian dogmatics, which in the
nineteenth century had gained so much ground, and had pro-
duced such important works as those of Thomasius, von Hof-
mann, Frank, and von Oettingen, had been broken. Even the
twentieth century, in the works of Kahler and Schlatter, can
show important and characteristic dogmatic achievements;
outside the sphere of the German-speaking peoples, too,
especially in England and in Holland, the dogmatic spirit was
not destroyed by the spirit of the Enlightenment. I need only
remind the reader of the dogmatic works of Forsyth, Kuyper

' Cf. E. Troeltsch, Wesen der Religion und der Religionswissenschaft in
P. Hinneberg's collective work, Die Kultur der Gegenwart I, IV, 2, pp. 1—36, a
work which one may describe as the dissolution of Protestant Dogmatics; it
was published in 1909.

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

and Bavinck. The same can be said, of course, still more
decidedly of Catholic dogmatics, which, it is true, since the Refor-
mation, and especially after the Enlightenment, had lost a
great deal of weight and power, but which, like Protestant
theology, gained a new impulse in the nineteenth century, and
since then has been able to maintain a high level of achieve-
ment. Protestant Dogmatics has received a very powerful
increase of vitality through the Luther revival in Sweden and
Germany, and through the "Dialectical" Theology. We would
be unjust to the achievements of men like Kahler, Schlatter,
Bavinck, Billing and Aulen were we to designate Karl Barth as
the one and only thinker who has revived Protestant dogmatics;
no one can deny that he has done very much towards the new
development, and above all that he has given the Reformed
Churches a new consciousness of their task, nor would any-
one deny the grandeur of his own massive achievement in dog-
matics. Dogmatics is on the way to regain its rightful place
within the work of the Christian Church. We shall show below
that this does not constitute the only, and perhaps not the
most important, doctrinal task of the Church in the modern
world.

(3) THE THREEFOLD ROOT OF DOGMATICS IN THE HISTORY OF
THEOLOGY

So far as I know, no one has previously noted this threefold
root of dogmatics ; hence there exists no historical survey of the
development of dogmatics from this threefold point of view.
The aim of this brief sketch is to try to fill this gap, however
inadequately. [We are not here concerned with apologetics,
that is, discussion with non-Christian thought; this is an
intellectual concern of the Church of a special kind.]

(i) The Polemical Element

Controversy has played a great part in the dogmatic labours
of the Church. Those arguments with heresy which are nowa-
days rather contemptuously dismissed as "theological quarrels",
at the best periods in the life of the Church had a most stimu-
lating effect upon men of vital spirit and vigorous intellect.
This is not surprising — for such theological work is like the
effort made by a sound organism to repel infectious germs. We
should note, too, that at least in the early days of the Church,
the frontier line between polemics within the Church — against

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

heresy — and apologetics — as conflict with the paganism out-
side the Church — was not drawn very sharply, because pagan-
ism— as, for instance, in the case of Gnosticism — was trying to
penetrate into the Church itself. So the enterprise of theological
dogmatics begins with a work which, in its very title, suggests
its polemic and apologetic aim, the Elenchus of Irenaeus. The
first great dogmatic work of Christian theology is a contro-
versial work against Gnosticism. The work of Irenaeus was
carried further in Tertullian's Adversus Marcionem, and in the
RefutaUo of Hippolytus, and from this time onwards a steady
stream of polemical theological literature pours through the
Early Christian Church; it reached a peak in the Orationes
contra Arianos of Athanasius, and later in Augustine's great
controversial works against the Manichaeans, the Donatists,
and the Pelagians. In the Middle Ages, regarded as a whole, the
polemical element was less evident than the speculative doctrinal
element; yet here, too, there was a great dogmatic literature
which served the interests of discussion within the Church. We
need only recall the controversies between Radbertus and
Ratramnus, Lanfranc and Berengar, Bernard and Abelard, and
the endless conflicts between Realists and Nominalists, Domini-
cans and Franciscans.

In the period of the Reformation, alongside of the interest in
exegesis and edification, the polemical element dominated
theological thinking ; the most important writings of Luther (in
which the new understanding of the faith was first expressed in
theological terms) are controversial writings, not only against
the Roman Catholic Church, but also against the humanistic
and fanatical views of the Gospel. The same is true of Zwingli —
de vera et falsa religione — whereas with Calvin the polemical
element is less prominent, although as is well known it is not
absent.

The Council of Trent gave a fresh stimulus to Protestant
polemics — we need only remind ourselves of the excellent work
of Chemnitz, Examen Concilii Tridentini. In post-Reformation
orthodoxy the doctrinal element — {definitions!) — outweighs the
polemical; the Scholastics of the Middle Ages secretly be-
come the model for theology. Since the Enlightenment the
conflict that rages round the foundations of Christian doc-
trine, that is, the apologetic interest, outweighs all others; yet
even so, the renewal of dogmatics has been due to a great
extent to the controversy with theological Liberalism or
Idealism.

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

(ii) Instruction of Catechumens {preparation for Baptism) and the

Speculative Element

In the theology of the Early Church this is less prominent
than the polemical element, but it certainly exists. Among these
writings we must reckon not only the "catechetical" writings
which have been lost, mentioned by Eusebius, the twenty-four
Catechetical works of Cyril of Jerusalem, and the Enchiridion of
Augustine, but also the Proireptikos of Clement of Alexandria,
and the first — and for a long time the only — dogmatic work of
Origen, De principiis — all of which, in the main, owe their
origin to this element ; to these we should also add the Cateche-
tica magna of Gregory of Nyssa.

In mediaeval Scholasticism the speculative doctrinal element
was magnificently expressed ; the method of questioning in the
Summa of St. Thomas has evident affinities with the catechetical
method. Here instruction is being given. We have already men-
tioned the fact that Calvin's Institutes originally arose out of
a small handbook on the Luther-Catechism. In the period of
Protestant Scholasticism, as we have already seen, the doctrinal
element predominated. In a certain sense we may also reckon
the "scientific" (or intellectual) element which dominates the
newer dogmatics as part of this element, Karl Barth himself
would scarcely wish to deny that the method of his Dogmatics
is based upon the model of the great scholastic systems.

(iii) Dogmatics as the Summary of Biblical Doctrine

In early and mediaeval theology the third element — the
doctrinal development of the fundamental ideas of the Bible —
was weakest. It is, of course, true that Augustine's De doctrina
Christiana, which is explicitly described as a book to help the
reader of the Bible, is a sign that it was not entirely lacking.
On the other hand, Melanchthon's Dogmatics aims to help the
Bible reader; this work — the first Dogmatics of the theology of
the Reformation — says explicitly in the Preface: ut, si quos
queam, ad scripturas invitem. Nos certe non aliud agimus, quam
ut eorum qui in scripturis versari volent studia utcunque juvemus.
Id si non videbitur praestare libellus, pereat sane. Since then, in
the older Protestant theology, the title most often used was
Loci theologici. It is no accident that with Keckermann (1611)
the new title Systema s. theologia and with Alsted (1618) the
still more revealing title Theologia scholastica appears. During
the seventeenth century, at least in the titles of their books, the
Lutherans remained faithful to the example set by Melanchthon.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

In modern times it has been the dogmatic theologians well
known for their "Biblical" tendency — Cremer, Kahler and
Schlatter — who show clearly, by the very way they construct
their dogmatic works, that it is their intention to allow "the
Word" to be fully expressed.

* * * *

In conclusion, this suggestion of the three different sources
of dogmatics should not be confused with a classification of the
dogmatic systems themselves. In all works of dogmatics the
three elements — the polemical, the catechetical and specula-
tive, and the Biblical, are interwoven, although the amount of
emphasis on the various elements varies greatly from one to
another. While the creative periods of new ideas and thoughts
are characterized by a flood of controversial pamphlets, the
leisurely construction of massive tomes of theology (like the
Summa of St. Thomas and other similar works) is a sign of a
purely speculative interest, and of a certain "remoteness" from
the general life of the Church.

(4) DOGMATICS AND THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

From the time of Schleiermacher it became the usual thing
to conceive dogmatics as the doctrine of the Christian religion,
and therefore to make the problem of "religion" the starting-
point. If indeed the Christian knowledge of faith is subsumed
under the comprehensive notion "Christian Religion", then it is
only logical to subordinate the Christian Religion itself to a
still higher conception, that of "religion in general". While with
Schleiermacher this scientific method results logically from his
belief in a "religion in general", in an "essence of religion", to
which the Christian religion is related as a particular kind
within the species^ this development of dogmatics out of the
concept of "Religion" is repellent to all those theologians who,
diverging from, and indeed in opposition to, Schleiermacher,
conceive the Christian Faith to be the relation of man to the
Divine Revelation. Certainly, even for the Christian thinker the
phenomenon of "religion" requires thoughtful consideration;
he, too, will regard it as one of his tasks to try to understand
this phenomenon, from the standpoint of the Christian Faith,
and to assign it its rightful place. But for him this is a later
development, it is not the starting-point of his theological
thinking. For he does not understand the Christian Faith in the

' Cf. my book Die Mystik und das Wort, 2nd Ed. 1928, Ch. 2.

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

light of "Religion", but he understands religion in the light of
the Christian Faith. The Christian view of religion, with special
reference to the various "religions" — (the general concept of
"religion" is very problematic) — is part of his doctrine of Man,
but it is not the basis of his dogmatics. Dogmatics is not the
Science of "the Christian Religion".

The problem of a neutral, objective science of religion
(already mentioned in Chapter I) is quite different, and indeed
is very complicated. First of all, it is a fact. Research is actually
being carried on, in our universities and elsewhere, in the study
of the "world of religions", just as other spheres of human
reality are examined by those who carry on research. There is
an extensive "Science of Religion" in which, with all possible
objectivity, on the one hand the various religions, and on the
other hand the various religious attitudes and states of con-
sciousness are described. It is obvious that the Christian
Religion, too, can be the object of such a descriptive, neutrally
objective, science. Here the aim is to describe scientifically the
facts of Christianity, which means that "Christian doctrine and
Christian dogma" also are facts, and, as such, constitute a
particular subject of enquiry. It should be quite clear that the
purpose and result of such research is something wholly different
from that which dogmatics purposes and achieves. For this
factual account of what is actually taught within Christianity
only aims at giving an account of what is, without any claim to
establish a norm. Such research does not enquire into the truth
of these doctrines, it does not ask, which then of these contra-
dictory doctrines is the right one ; it does not even try to erect
a criterion of "soundness"; but with equal fidelity it presents
an "objective" description of the most primitive and abstruse
superstitions, and of the most fundamental Biblical doctrines.
It is true that this "science of facts" has certain historical
categories at its disposal, which enables it to make a certain
hierarchy of facts: those which are original, classical and
canonical respectively — in the sense of that which has actually
been achieved within history — that which is taught by scholars
who are at the height of their profession, or by those scholars
who are outstanding in the spheres of social science or culture ;
but these categories have no normative meaning ; they are only
a means of classification. The Science of Religion cannot say,
and does not intend to say, what the true Christian doctrine is.

Within this objective Science of Religion there is a peculiar
position adopted by the Swedi-sh school of "Research into

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Fundamental Motives", represented by the theologian A.
Nygren and his school, the high value of which is shown in an
impressive manner by Nygren's excellent book, Eros and Agape.
Here the method of objective presentation appears to penetrate
not only into the very centre of the Christian Faith, but through
the idea of the "fundamental motive" it even seems to gain a
normative significance, although this may not be its direct aim.
Through the working out of the "fundamental motive" of a
rehgion it is claimed that it is possible to work out the "charac-
teristic and typical" elements (Nygren, Eros and Agape, I,
p. 21, German ed.). The objective freedom of "values" of this
process of research is, however, explicitly emphasized. It is not
concerned with making a contrast between what is "right" and
what is "wrong", but — in the case of the Eros- Agape problem —
to contrast the Christian and the non-Christian points of view
(p. 23). The "fundamental motive" of a view is defined as "its
answer to a question of a fundamental character, which from
the point of view of category may be described as a funda-
mental question" (p. 25). This new method of research seems
to have a good deal of affinity with the phenomenological
method of Husserl, and it promises to yield rich results; here,
however, all we wish to show is that this is not the way of
dogmatic theology. For dogmatics does not try to find, or want
to find, the "fundamental motive of Primitive Christianity",
but the right doctrine of God, and in so doing to serve the
teaching Church, whose conscience is only easy when she is
teaching according to the Truth — not in accordance with a
"fundamental motive".

(5) APOLOGETICS AND "ERISTICS"

Apologetic, or (as I have proposed owing to the unfortunate
suggestions attached to this word) "eristic" theology, is the
intellectual discussion of the Christian Faith in the light of
the ideologies of the present day which are opposed to the
Christian Message. The name "apologetic" is hampered by the
suggestion of a defence of Christianity at the bar of Reason,
even if it does not go so far as to claim rational proof. Actually,
however, what matters is not "defence" but "attack" — the
attack, namely, of the Church on the opposing positions of
unbelief, superstition, or misleading ideologies. It is true that
part of this attack consists in proving that the hostile attacks —
not on empirical Christianity, for these are as a rule only too

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

fully justified, but — on the Biblical Message, as being contrary
to reason, opposed to culture, scientifically untenable, etc., are
based upon errors, due either to the confusion of rationalism
with reason, of positivism with science, of a critical with a
sceptical attitude, or out of ignorance of the real truth which
the Bible contains.

Apologetics, as a wrestling with the enemy outside the camp,
corresponds to the conflict with heresy within. It is a necessity
only where the foundations (and not merely particular doc-
trines) of the Christian Message are attacked ; that is, where in
the spiritual conflict the whole is at stake, and not merely
certain parts.

Hence this apologetic-eristic theology in the Church has
always and everywhere, from time immemorial, been to the
fore where the Christian Message as such was menaced. All the
great theologians of the Early Church were at the same time
"Apologists", and the apologetic or "eristic" works of the first
four centuries are at least as numerous and important as those
which may be properly described as "dogmatic".^ Here I will
only mention the greatest of them all: Augustine's De civitate
Dei.

Owing to the fact that at the Reformation theology was very
one-sided, certain contemporary theologians have concluded
that apologetics (or eristics) is not a necessary, or even a
legitimate task of theology. It is true that the period of the
Reformation did not achieve much in this direction — for the
simple reason that at that time the main conflict was not with
unbelief, but with a mistaken faith within the Church itself.
The same was true of mediaeval theology, until the actual
conflict arose against Islam as a philosophy, and against the
polemic of Judaism. In the period after the Reformation, when
the philosophy of the Renaissance, and the dawn of the period
of the Enlightenment began the attack on the foundations of
the Christian Faith, a new eristic movement began, whose
most brilliant example was the Pensees of Pascal: indeed, to
this day this work remains an unsurpassed model of discussion
with the educated unbeliever.

Unfortunately, the philosophy of the Enlightenment, and the
Idealism which succeeded it, gained such a hold over so many
of the finest intellects in the Protestant world that — with the
exception of Hamann — the Church was unable to produce any
vigorous champions of Christian doctrine. So far as the Church

' Cf. Zockler, Geschichte der Apologie, 1907.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

itself was concerned, doctrine became increasingly rigid, and it
was limited to the defence of positions which only seemed to be
centrally Christian, because they were connected with the
orthodox traditions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ;
thus the Church usually came off rather badly.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, however, in the
person of Soren Kierkegaard, one of the most powerful cham-
pions of the Christian Faith arose, a man who was able to stand
forth as a witness all the more clearly and plainly because at the
same time he ruthlessly summoned the empirical Christianity
of his own day to give an account of itself. The largest part of
his literary work, however, was not an "attack upon Chris;
tianity", but on the contrary it was a single, skilfully con-
structed attack upon the ideologies of his own day, which were
opposed to the Christian Faith, especially the romantic idealism
of Hegel, aestheticism, self-complacent bourgeois morality, and
the "mass" spirit. We may indeed claim that no other thinker
has ever worked out the contrast between the Christian Faith
and all the "immanental" possibilities of thought with such
clarity and intensity as he has done. Kierkegaard is incom-
parably the greatest Apologist or "eristic" thinker of the
Christian Faith within the sphere of Protestantism. The pioneer
task which he began still waits to be carried further; indeed,
this work has scarcely been begun.

In our own day the expansion of totalitarian ideologies both
of the National Socialist and the Bolshevist variety have made
it clear, even to those who formerly had no use for eristic
theology, that such discussion is necessary. At last it has once
more been recognized that the proclamation of the truth alone
is not sufficient, that the immediate command is also to un-
mask all untruth, and that this summons cannot be avoided;
within the Church itself the simple proclamation of the Gospel
is not enough, but theological controversy has to be carried on
with heresy, and all that is untrue or unreal within her life must
be eliminated.

When the objection is raised that we are here trying to
"prove" something which can only be "believed", we might
say exactly the same about all the intellectual labour expended
on dogmatics, and about all polemical discussion with heresy
within the Church, and indeed about theology in general. On
the other hand, as the present writer has done in his article
entitled "Die andere AufgabederTheologie" {Zwischen den Zeiten,
1929, pp. 255-76), we may answer, that every living procla-

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APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

mation of the Biblical message, and indeed this message itself,
is full of eristic apologetic elements — is it not indeed an attack
upon the self -understanding of the unbelieving "natural"
man? In Apologetics this attack takes place in reflective form,
which corresponds to the reflective form of the testimony to
faith in dogmatics.

Karl Earth's hostihty to Apologetics is, however, to this
extent justified, because it is true that discussion with non-
Christian thought cannot be the basis and the starting-point
for dogmatics itself. His opposition to "eristics" was necessary,
so long as this was proclaimed as the "foundation" of dogmatics.
The task of theological prolegomena, and the task of contro-
versy with the various attacks upon the foundation of revela-
tion, must be clearly and conscientiously distinguished from
one another, although from the purely psychological stand-
point it is still true that "eristics" helps to create the necessary
space for the doctrine of the Church. The confusion of both
tasks is evident ii;! the work of such otherwise excellent dogmatic
theologians as Kahler and Schlatter; indeed, I myself, in my
early writings, also believed that both tasks were the same.

Further, there is a type of theology which it is not easy to
distinguish from eristics on the one hand, and from dogmatics
on the other; this is called "missionary theology".

(6) MISSIONARY THEOLOGY

In a single sentence^ the Apostle Paul has expressed the
programme of, and the justification for, both Apologetics or
Eristics and of "missionary theology". "For the weapons of
our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the
casting down of strong holds; casting down reasonings" — that is
the programme of eristics. He goes on to say that the aim of
this process is to bring "every thought into captivity to the
obedience of Christ" — that is the programme of what we may
call "missionary theology". In the message of the missionary,
whether we are willing to admit this or not, to be able to make
use of the knowledge which the pagan, unconverted, man
already possesses plays a decisive part. No missionary work
has ever been carried on in any other way, and it can never be
done in any other way.

The mere act of "bearing witness" remains sterile unless it
can be integrated with the truth which the listener already

» 2 Cor. lo: 4 ff.
lOI

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

possesses. To deny this is to deny an obvious fact; it really
means shutting one's eyes to the truth for the sake of a mis-
taken theory.

Now it is the task of "missionary theology" to accomplish in
the sphere of intellectual reflection what every missionary does,
as it were, by instinct. In so doing something is achieved which
the dogmatic theologian, as such, ought not to do, and cannot
do. His task is strictly confined to the subject with which he is
dealing ; the person who is listening to what he has to say does
not directly concern him. He has enough to do to make clear
the content of the message in its own proper context. The
spiritual situation of the non-Christian hearer does not come
directly within his line of vision. This spiritual situation, how-
ever, is also a concrete problem. The non-believing hearer —
above all the presumptive hearer — is already affected by a
definite "spirit of the age"; that is to say, his views of life and
its problems, and of his own nature, are all coloured by a
definite outlook which claims to rival the Christian view of life.
The total sinfulness of the natural man does not consist in the
fact that all that he thinks and believes is false, but in the fact
that he is wholly unable to distinguish between the true and
the false in his understanding of himself or of life. Therefore one
to whom the truth of Christ has been granted has the task of
making this distinction, and in so doing he has to explain the
meaning of the Christian message. And this is the task of
"missionary theology", the positive aspect of Eristics. The
first part of the Pauline statement described the first, negative,
task; the second part describes the positive task. Missionary
theology is an intellectual presentation of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, which starts from the spiritual situation of the hearer,
and is addressed to it.

As dogmatics is necessarily deductive, missionary theology
is equally necessarily inductive. Dogmatics says: this is the
revealed truth, and this is the salvation of humanity. Missionary
theology says: This is the need and the danger of man — and
from this the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the means of rescue.
Missionary theology is, first of all, wholly concerned with the
hearer, with his need, his helplessness, his scepticism and his
longing. Missionary theology unveils the "cor inquietum", and
shows why it is "inquietum" ; it does not, however, do this in
such a way that the Gospel appears to be derived from the
need of man; rather, its aim is to show that it is only the
miracle of revelation in Jesus Christ which can meet man's

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APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

need, because this distress is caused by man's distance from
God, and indeed consists in this aHenation.

Missionary theology takes the form of a conversation be-
tween a Christian behever and an unbeHever. The Christian
behever enters into the questions raised by the unbeHever; he
gives full weight to all the truth and insight the unbeHever
already possesses. But he shows also how his knowledge, and
therefore also his questions, ignore the very thing which brings
light and true knowledge. Missionary theology is, so to say,
pastoral work in the form of reflection, just as dogmatics is
witness in the form of reflection.

Missionary theology removes the hindrances which lie be-
tween the Gospel and the hearer — namely, those hindrances
which are accessible to intellectual reflection. As in all Christian
doctrine — even in dogmatics — the success which attends the
instruction does not lie ultimately in the hands of the human
teacher, but only in the hands of the Divine Teacher, who is the
Holy Spirit. But as in all teaching, so also in this form of
teaching, this knowledge of the mystery and the grace of the
decisive illumination ought not to prevent us from doing, and
from recognizing as a task, that which is set before us as a
task, and that which lies within the sphere of human assistance
along the line of thought.

When we try to estimate the fruit of human teaching in the
Church, then what a thinker like Pascal achieved in his Pensees,
as an aid to faith, far surpasses all that has been done by
dogmatic theologians in the name of the Church. Likewise, I
am convinced that the missionary theology of a man like
Kierkegaard in the nineteenth century, has done more than
any dogmatic theologian, perhaps more than all of them put
together. Since his time, however, the task which he then
recognized as the proper intellectual task of the Church, has
become ten times more urgent. The Catholic Church has
recognized this, and has set mighty forces to work to achieve
this task; Protestant theology, however, still manages to
ignore it, and even dismisses the very idea with contempt. This
contempt may even prove its own destruction.

(7) DOGMA

The word "dogma", although derived from one Greek word'
actually was used in two senses; this also comes out in the
ecclesiastical development of dogma. The verb which lies at

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the root of it is 8oKetv, So/cet />toi, SeSo/crat. Dogma means,
on the one hand, a pubUc "ordinance" or "enactment" for the
government of a city, a "decree" enforced with the support of
the Law. On the other hand, in the language of the philosophers
it meant the common tenets of a "school", which served as a
basis for further teaching and research, for which the Latin
uses the word "decree" as the equivalent of "dogma": decreta
quae philosophi vacant Soy/xara. (Cicero, Academ., II, 9, 27.)
Further, Cicero describes the "dogma" or "decretum" as the
"lex veri rectique" , and says of it that it is "stabile, fixum, ratum,
quod mover e nulla ratio queat".

From philosophy the term was transferred to religion and
morality, so that Josephus {c. Apion. Lib., I, c. 8) can describe
the content of the Old Testament writings as Oeov Soy/xara.
This usage was then taken over by the early Fathers of the
Church and applied to the fundamental Christian truths; at
the same time — thus maintaining the ancient twofold meaning
— it was used to describe that which the Church had laid down
as a religious law. But this procedure took place more or less
independently of the word "dogma". It came into use when a
doctrinal ecclesiastical authority, with power to impose its
ordinances, laid down a definite doctrine as valid, as binding
for faith, especially when it explicitly judged or condemned the
view which diverged from this valid doctrine, and pronounced
it "anathema". Hence the great Church Councils and their
doctrinal decisions promoted the development of dogma. Yet
there was this difference: that in the East it was the doctrinal
element, and in the West the juridical element, which pre-
dominated. The consciousness of dogma, without the use of the
word "dogma", is classically expressed in the introductory
sentence of the "formula quicunque", in the so-called Athana-
sian Creed: "Quicunque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus habet,
ut ieneat catholicum fidem. Quam nisi quisque integram invio-
latamque servaverit, absque dubio in aeternum peribit".

As such, the Primitive Church only had two dogmas: the
doctrine of the Trinity, and its Christology, although in a
broader sense we must describe as dogma all that about which
the Church pronounced its decrees — as, for instance, the con-
demnation of a whole series of views held by Origen.

Mediaeval theology accepted the formulation of Duns
Scotus: tenendum . . . pro vero, quidquid tradidit auctoritas (cf.
Loofs, Dogmengeschichte, p. 591). This conception of the doc-
trinal authority of the Church as the right to establish and

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APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

define valid dogma, was ascribed only to the infallible Council
and its formal doctrinal decisions, until the Vaticanum. These
decisions alone constitute the "dogma" of the Church. But
with the Vaticanum this final authority was transferred to the
Pope. His doctrinal decisions are "ex sese, non ex consensu
ecclesiae" , infallible, "irreformable" (Denzinger, Enchir. symbol.
1839). "Thus every Catholic dogma bears two essential charac-
teristics: an inward, concrete one, contained within the revela-
tion, and an outer juridical one, the proclamation by the
Church" (Bartmann, Lehrbuch der Dogmatik, I, p. 4). The
meaning of this "proclamation" becomes clear from the formula
of the "Vaticanum" : "ea omnia . . . {quae) credenda proponuntur"
(Denzinger 1792). Dogma, therefore, is that, and only that,
which the infallible teaching Church puts forth as "credendum"
as that which is commanded to be believed by a law of the
Church. It is, of course, eo ipso, also a doctrinal law: every
doctrine which contradicts it is forbidden, and will be sup-
pressed by the Church authorities. By the Vaticanum the idea
of dogma was also formally recognized as authoritative : at the
outset dogma is all that the Pontifex Maximus of the Roman
Church will teach in virtue of his authority. This is the strictly
logical conception of dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.

The idea of dogma in the Eastern Orthodox Church (especi-
ally in the Greek and Russian branches) is far less juridically
conceived, and less formally authoritarian in character, because
here there is no concentration in an infallible doctrinal authority
and still less in its sovereign head. The real dogma of the
Eastern Church is the so-called Nicene Creed, the "unicum
symbolum" which represents "all that is necessary as the sum
of those things to be believed" (Loofs, op. cit.). "The symbol is
a compendium of dogma as a whole" (Loofs, op. cit., p. 135).
But this chief symbol is always to be understood as the sum of
the whole doctrinal tradition of ancient times, especially of the
doctrinal decisions of the seven oecumenical Synods, from the
first to the second Council of Nicea, 325-692. Since the Ortho-
dox Church now possesses no infallible doctrinal authority, in
so far as no Patriarch and no Synod ex dogmate is regarded as
infallible, there is here a fair amount of scope for do9trinal
freedom, even though this means that the theologians of these
Churches are only free to move within the interpretation of
faith given in the sacred Creeds, or, at least, this is said to be
their scope. In the main, we may say that this view of dogma is
approximately that of the Fathers of the Church.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

This conception of dogma is also that which was taken over
by the Reformers. Both the Augustana (Augsburg Confession)
and the Confessio Helvetica posterior (Second Helvetic Con-
fession) explicitly emphasize their "orthodoxy", with reference
to the ancient Creeds of the Church, and the dogma which they
incorporate. Indeed, the Helvetica goes so far as to preface its
own Confession with an Edict of Theodosius of the year 380,
which places heretics under heavenly and earthly penalties. But
if we ask for the authority which is ascribed to the confessional
writings of the Reformation themselves, it then becomes plain
that the supremacy of the Scriptural principle above the prin-
ciple of tradition, which governs all Reformation doctrine, has
also had an effect on the validity of these newer creeds, and
indeed could ultimately be applied to that of the ancient creeds
themselves. There are a number of indications which point to
this : for one thing the variety of confessions — especially in the
sphere of the Reformed Churches — which differ a good deal
from one another; secondly, the fact that some of them — for
instance, the Augustana — even after they had been accepted
were altered and "improved"; thirdly, the fact that some of
them explicitly emphasized the fact that they only claim
validity in so far as they do not require revision in the light of
the Scriptures, as for instance, Conjf. Gallicana, Art. V. By the
principle of Scripture, dogma, and also the new ecclesiastical
Confession, instead of being an absolute authority, became a
conditional authority, a "norma normata" , as this was expressed
by an orthodox Lutheran, Leonhard Hiitter, in the year 1608.
The confessional writings of the Lutheran Church only merit
conditional belief, "nempe quatenus cum scripturis sacris ex asse
concordant"."^

The genuine Reformation principle of Scripture, especially as
it was boldly formulated by Luther, was a severe blow to the
authority of dogma. Even the doctrine of Scripture is not, as
such, infallible ; it, too, must be tested by its own standard, that
is, by the revelation which it contains : Christus dominus et rex
scripturae. Even in the Scriptures the divine dogma is not
simply "given", but it is given in such a way that at the same
time and continually it must be sought. Only then does the
truly Biblical conception of truth and faith become valid; no
doctrine as such is the object of faith, the "credendum", but
only in, and under the doctrine of "Jesus Christ" as God's Own
Word, Himself. Faith is not relation to a doctrine, to that
• Ritschl, Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus ,1, p. 391.
106

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

which ought to be beheved, but it is the obedience of faith,
vTTaKorj TTiaTeios, to Jesus Christ Himself, who bears witness
to Himself in the Word of the Scriptures through the Holy
Spirit in the heart, conscience, and mind of man as the Truth.
This truth, made known through the Reformation, destroyed
the authoritarian conceptions of dogma, both in the Catholic,
and in the Protestant Church — the one with its authority of the
Church, and the other with its authority of the Bible; dogma is
still only a relative, not an absolute authority, because it is
only the human vessel which contains the divine revelation.

(8) THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE

From the very beginning the Christian Church possessed a
Sacred Scripture which had absolute canonical authority: the
Old Testament. Its authority was based upon the fact that it
was the work of the Holy Spirit, OeoTTvevaros (2 Tim. 3: 16).
The doctrine of Verbal Inspiration was already known to pre-
Christian Judaism (cf. Offenbarung und Vernunft, p. 117) and
was probably also taken over by Paul and the rest of the
Apostles. Later on, however, in the Early Church and in the
Mediaeval Church, the influence of this literalistic theory of the
authority of Scripture was actually not only modified in
practice, but to a large extent removed by the very free,
and often quite arbitrary method of allegorical exposition (cf.,
for instance, i Cor. 9: 9). In point of fact Scripture was regarded
as the authority because, and in so far as, it bore witness to
Jesus as the Christ. Faith in Christ, and the Holy Spirit operating
in the Church, were the actual seat of authority, which was
only theoretically equated with "Scripture", but not in prac-
tice. From the second century onwards the New Testament
was added to the Old Testament as Holy Scripture. Although
until the fourth century the range of the New Testament Canon
was not always and everywhere the same, yet from the middle
of the second century it was established that alongside of the
Old Testament there was a second written authority of equal
rank, which, even if not in theory, yet in actual fact, was the
final court of appeal for the definition of that which was to be
considered valid in the Church. From the time of Justin Martyr
{Coh. ad Graecos, 8) there was also a rudimentary doctrine of
Inspiration — God's Spirit makes use of "holy men" as a zither-
player plays on his zither — which established the supernatural
authority of the Scriptures. "Hence they have taught us . . .

107

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

out of one mouth, with one voice, logically, and without con-
tradiction." And Irenaeus already teaches: "Scripturae quidem
perfectae sunt, quippe a verbo Dei et Spiritu ejus dictae" {Adv.
Haer., II, 28), and Tertullian makes the acceptance of the
whole Codex the criterion of Christian life {De praescr. Haer.,
22). It seems to have been he who introduced the idea of
"inspiration" — as well as many other ideas — into the theological
vocabulary. But in spite of this strict theory, the actual view of
the authority of Scripture remained to a large extent free, and
allowed critical observations on special points of detail. From
Origen onwards, the rank growth of the allegorical method of
Biblical exposition made it impossible to maintain the Bible
text as normative, as compared with the ecclesiastical develop-
ment of doctrine. By means of allegorical exposition the
Scholastics "prove", with the help of Scripture, all that they
wish to prove.

The struggle of the Reformers for the sole supremacy of
Scripture as the doctrinal authority was therefore only signi-
ficant in the fact that at the same time they followed the line
of the literal historical and philological exposition of the
Scriptures. So long as a "regula fidei" determined the method
of exposition, nothing could be done against Roman Catholic
doctrine ; for naturally the latter also appealed for support in a
general way to the Scriptures, and bolstered up its specifically
Catholic views by an appeal to the " analogia fidei" . With the
doctrine of the equal authority of tradition and Scripture — the
"sine scripto traditiones" are to be accepted "pari pietatis affectu
ac reverentia" — (Denzinger, 783) — guaranteed not only a second
seat of authority, but above all the canonical authority of the
Church's interpretation of Scripture. "Neither the Holy Scrip-
tures nor the Divine tradition, but the teaching Church, which
infallibly expounds both sources of truth ... is for us the first
rule of faith", so does a responsible theologian of the Vatican
formulate the Catholic idea of authority (Loots, Symbolik,
p. 209). "The Catholic Christian must believe everything that
God has revealed, and that which the Catholic Church presents
to be believed, whether the same be found in the Scriptures or
not," is said in a Catholic Catechism {ibid., p. 210). Thus, with-
out denying the view of the Early Church on the Scriptures
(doctrine of Inspiration), or the Tridentine principle of Tradi-
tion, the Catholic Church removes both Tradition and Scripture
from the position of critical courts of appeal by the actual and
legal establishment of the Papal doctrinal authority as the

108

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

supreme court of appeal, against which there can be no appeal.
The principle of Scripture, already weakened by the theory of
the equal value of Tradition, although not contested, was thus,
though retained in theory, actually abrogated in practice.

But the Protestant principle of Scripture — deliberately we
do not say that of the Reformation — is far from being clear.
Certainly, it is true that at first all that mattered was the
contrast between Scripture and Tradition. The Reformers saw
the immense contrast between the doctrine of the New Testa-
ment and the doctrine of the Roman Church, and they decided
for the former against the latter. The Word of God alone, not
the doctrine of the Church, has final authority: "Quod sine
scripturis asseritur, aut revelatione probata opinari licet, credi non
est necesse" (Luther, W. 6, 508). Since, however, the Cathohc
Church also claims that it is based upon the foundation of Holy
Scripture, and claims for herself the right to give the only valid
interpretation of Scripture, this first thesis has to be supple-
mented by a second one: "scriptura sui ipsius interpres" {W. 7,
97), and this means further: Scripture is to be understood in
the "sensus liter alis" . "The natural language is the Queen"
{W. 18, 180). The Principle of Scripture requires the renuncia-
tion of the allegorical method of exposition: "Difficillimum
autem mihi fuit, ah usitato studio aUegoriarum discedere, et tamen
videham allegorias esse inanes speculationes et tanquam spumam
sacrae scripturae. Sola enim historica sententia est quae vere et
solide docet" {W. 42, 173). Zwingli expresses the same view in
his work "Von Klarheit und Gewissheit oder Untriiglichkeit des
Wortes Gottes".

What, then, is here meant by "the Scriptures" ? If they alone
are the authority, in what sense is this meant? One of the
greatest proofs of the truly spiritual freedom of Luther is the
fact that he did not allow himself to be led astray into a
literalistic interpretation of Scripture, although this would
have been a very easy thing to do, in this situation of conflict
and controversy. In spite of the fact that he could fight Rome
with the Scriptures only, not only did he not (like the "ortho-
dox" of a later date) set up a doctrine of Verbal Inspiration,
and thus of the Infallibility of the Text of the Bible, but, going
further than any previous critical views of Scripture, he made
a distinction between Scriptures that were "canonical", and
those which were not (not in the sense of being included in the
Canon or not, but in the sense that some were binding and
others were not). His delicate sense of truth did not allow him

109

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

to ignore the fact that some parts of Scripture contained far
more of the quahty of "revelation" than others; this prevented
him from laying down a principle of the authority of Scripture
in formal, general terms — in which all parts of Scripture are
regarded as of equal value. His various prefaces to the different
books of the Bible are valuable testimonies to his point of view.
This is his principle : "This is the touchstone by which all books
may be tested, to see whether they proclaim Christ or not, since
all Scripture witnesses to Christ and St. Paul will know nothing
save Christ. Whatever does not teach Christ is not apostohc,
even were it taught by St. Peter or St. Paul" {E. 63, 157).
Thus the content and the real authority of Scripture is Christ.
"But if I know what I believe, then I know what stands in the
Scriptures, and the Scriptures contain nothing save Christ and
the Christian Faith" {W. 8, 236). "Si adversarii scnpturam
urserint contra Christum, urgemus Christum contra scripturam"
[Disput. Drews, p. 12). "Scriptura est non contra, sed pro Christo
intelligenda, ideo vel ad eum referenda, vel pro vera scriptura non
habenda" {ibid.). "Christus dominus scripturae {W. 40, i, 420).
Thus this means: we believe in Christ, not because Scripture, or
the Apostles, teach us about Him in such and such a way, but
we believe in the Scriptures because, and in so far as they
teach Christ. The authority of Scripture is not formal but
material: Christ, the revelation. Even subjectively, however,
this authority is not based upon the Scriptures as such, but
upon the encounter of faith with the Christ of Scripture. "Each
one alone therefore must believe that He is the Word of God,
and that he knoweth inwardly that He is the Truth" {W. 10,
2, 90). "It is not enough that thou sayest: Luther, Peter or
Paul hath said this, but thou must thyself feel in thy conscience
Christ Himself, and immovably that it is the Word of God. . . .
So long as thou hast not this feeling, so long hast thou certainly
not tasted the Word of God" {W. 10, 2, 22).

Here — compared with previous theological views — we find
a completely new conception of the authority of Scripture. We
are not required to believe the Scriptures because they are the
Scriptures; but because Christ, whom I am convinced in my
conscience is the Truth, meets me in the Scriptures — therefore
I believe. Scripture is not a formal authority which demands
belief in all it contains from the outset, but it is an instrumental
authority, in so far as it contains that element before which I
must bow in the truth, which also itself awakens in me the
certainty of truth. This is what Luther means by the "Word of

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

God", which therefore is not identical with the Word of Scrip-
ture, although it is only given to me through the Scriptures,
and as the Word of the Scriptures.

Only from this point of view, then, can we understand how it
was that Luther was able to assign various degrees of authority
to different parts of the Bible; he went so far as to say that he
would like to see certain books excluded from the Canon alto-
gether. Thus he makes very free and critical remarks about
the writings which compose the Scriptures of the Old and the
New Testaments, their historical origin, and the conditions
under which they were composed; many of these views have
been confirmed by the Biblical criticism of last century. Thus
Luther was the first to represent a Biblical faith which could be
combined with Biblical criticism, and was therefore funda-
mentally different from the traditional, formally authoritarian
view of the Bible, which culminates in the doctrine of Verbal
Inspiration.

Calvin is already moving away from Luther towards the
doctrine of Verbal Inspiration. His doctrine of the Bible is
entirely the traditional, formally authoritative view. The
writings of the Apostles "pro dei oracuUs habenda sunt" {Insti-
tutio, IV, 8, 9). Therefore we must accept "quidquid in sacris
scripturis traditum est sine exceptione" (I, 18, 4). The belief
"auctorem eius {sc: scripturae) esse deum" precedes all doctrine
(I, 7, 4). That again is the old view. On the other hand, his
exposition of Scripture moves along the line of Luther's new
understanding. It can indeed hardly be gainsaid that the
Reformed Church and its theology departed more swiftly than
the Lutheran Church from the original Scriptural principle —
that is, from the new and revolutionary principle of Scripture —
and returned to the traditional line of the formal authority of
the Bible (cf. Ritschl, Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus, I,
62 ff.).

From the end of the sixteenth century onwards there was no
other "principle of Scripture" than this formal authoritarian
one. Whatever development took place after this culminated in
the most strict and most carefully formulated doctrine of
Verbal Inspiration which is characteristic of orthodoxy proper
— Lutheran as well as Reformed. L. Hiitter already says of the
Bible that it is "verbatim dictata ita ut nullum jota a prophetis et
apostolis in istis libris sit exaratum, quod non sit theopneuston"
{Loci theoL, p. 26a). Johann Gerhard already teaches the
inspiration of the Hebrew vowel-points {Loci theol., II, p. 23b).

Ill

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Still more important than this verbal conception of the authority
of the Bible is the view — entirely opposed to the Reformation
Principle of Scripture — of the axiomatic, formal authoritarian
validity of Scripture: "Believing Christians", says Johann
Gerhard, "de scripturae auctoritate non quaerunt, est enim
principium" {op. cit., I, 9). The doctrine of the authority of
Scripture was not an " articultis fidei" , but rather "principium
articulorum fidei" {op. cit., I, II). Here explicitly the pre- and
super-ordination of belief in the Scriptures is taught as far
above all that they contain for faith, and in so doing Luther's
view of Christ as the sole content of the Scriptural faith has
been completely abandoned. After this it is only the final
logical deduction when all the content of Scripture is given the
same value — whether this content be historical or geographical
or religious in character — as the message of salvation ; even the
"res historicae, chronologicae, genealogicae, physicae et politicae
. . . sunt divinitus revelatae" , in spite of the fact that in them-
selves they have no connexion with the knowledge of salvation
at all (Hollaz, Examen theologicae, p. 83).

We must, however, admit that even among the Reformers
themselves alongside of their new principle they also retained
the traditional, formally authoritarian or axiomatic view of the
Scriptures, so that the new element of truth did not make a
final clean "break-through" ; thus, without meaning to do so,
it helped the return to the old view. This applies even to Luther
himself who was foremost among the Reformers in his efforts to
express the new principle of Scripture in the clearest and
boldest terms.

So it was only the rise of the science of Biblical Criticism,
and the crisis in the belief in the Bible created by the new
scientific view of the world, which forced theology to think
back to Luther's revolutionary insight into truth, and to
disentangle it from its connexion with the traditional doctrine
of Inspiration.

This process was carried through mainly by the labours of
the "Bible" theologians of last century, Kahler and Schlatter,
although we must not forget to mention their predecessors who
prepared the way, confessional theologians, like Thomasius
and von Oettingen. Thus Thomasius says {Christi Person und
Werk, II, p. 273): "That these writings have not been directly
dictated by the Holy Spirit, but that they have issued from the
process of thought and reflection, out of the inmost spirit, out
of the heart ... of the Apostles." Similarly von (3ettingen

112

APPENDIX TO PROLEGOMENA

{Luiherische Dogmatik, II, 2, p. 344): "The Bible ought not to
be, and must not be regarded as an oracle fallen from heaven
or dictated by the Holy Spirit, clothed with legal authority."
Kahler, in his important small book called Der sogenannte his-
torische Jesus und der geschichtliche hihlische Christus . . . has
disentangled the new Reformation view of Scripture very
clearly from the orthodox tradition and has once more "put it
on the map".

Fundamentally, Karl Earth's Dogmatik takes the same
position: "The Bible is not a book of sacred oracles; it is not an
organ of direct communication. It is real witness" (I, 2, p. 562).
He says that we could not expect that the Apostles and Pro-
phets, in addition to their encounter with the divine revelation,
"should also have had imparted to them a compendium of . . .
divine Wisdom concerning everything in the universe. ..."
{op. cit., p. 564). Indeed, Barth even speaks of the possibility
of error in the religious, that is, the theological content, of the
Bible {op. cit., «p. 565). Thus he arrives at a definite and clear
rejection of the orthodox view of the Bible {op. cit., 580 ff.) and
returns to the original principle of the Reformation. The same
view is contained in my book Religionsphilosophie evangelischer
Theologie (pp. 117-34), which was published in 1925 in the
Handhuch der Philosophie.

113

PART I

THE ETERNAL FOUNDATION

OF THE

DIVINE SELF-COMMUNICATION

SECTION ONE

THE NATURE OF GOD AND HIS
ATTRIBUTES

CHAPTER 12

THE NAME OF GOD

The phrase, "The Doctrine of God", must sound strange to
any unprejudiced person. How can man undertake to formulate
a doctrine of God ? If there is one point which is clear from the
very outset it is this: that God is not an "object" which man
can manipulate by means of his own reasoning ; He is a Mystery
dwelling in the depths of "inaccessible Light". Favete Unguis!
"God is in His Temple. . . . All within keep silence, Prostrate lie
with deepest reverence. ..." "Calmly to adore the Unfathom-
able" (Goethe) — this, surely, would be more fitting than the
effort to construct a "doctrine of God", Do we not read in the
Book of Judges: "Wherefore askest thou after My Name, seeing
it is wonderful?"^ And does not the Commandment of the Old
Testament against "graven images" bear the same meaning,
i.e. that we have no right to compare God with anything
known to us: that He is incomparable, and therefore cannot be
known? A man who thinks he can instruct others about God
has forgotten what he is supposed to be doing.

But when we say this we have already begun to know God,
and to teach men about Him. For this precisely is the know-
ledge of God, and the doctrine of God, namely, that He is in-
comparable, and that He cannot be defined. We are here con-
fronted by a remarkable dialectic, which will accompany us
throughout the whole of our study of dogmatics. The better
we know God, the more we know and feel that His Mystery is
unfathomable. The doctrine which lays the most stress upon
the Mystery of God will be nearest to the truth.

It is precisely this fact which distinguishes the God of the
Biblical revelation from the gods and divinities of paganism.
The gods of the heathen are not really mysterious, because they
can be "known" within the sphere of that which is natural and
given, whether in the processes of the world of nature or in the

' Judges 13: 18. (R.V.)
117

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

mind of man. Their mystery is the mystery of nature, of the
Self, of the world, and therefore it is not the mystery of that
which is genuinely supernatural. Through the Biblical revela-
tion we discover that what we can "learn" to know as "God"
by our own unaided efforts is not the True God, precisely be-
cause we acquire this "knowledge" by our own efforts. Even
the "Unfathomable" which the agnostic sets in the place of
God is not a real mystery, but simply denotes the limitations of
our knowledge, a fact of which we are fully aware, and one
which it is not at all difficult to perceive. One who is only
aware of this limitation is not yet aware how mysterious God is.
The thought of that limitation to our knowledge, the idea of
the Unfathomable which we can acquire by our own unaided
efforts, has therefore no power at all to inspire us with genuine
reverence, for there is here a confusion of ideas: the conception
of that which has not yet been perceived, of the riddle of the
universe, and the idea of that which in principle cannot be
discovered by man's searching, these two fundamentally
different ideas have unconsciously merged into one another.
That which we can see to be "unfathomable" is an emptiness, not
a fullness. It makes us "resigned", it does not bring us fulfil-
ment. It does not bring us to our knees, and it moves neither
heart nor will. It does not draw us to Itself; the only effect it
has is that we do not further concern ourselves with something
we cannot know. Agnosticism is not an attitude of reverence
but of indifference.

Conversely, what the Bibhcal revelation teaches us is that
the very mystery can only be understood as a genuine mystery
by means of revelation. We do not fully realize how unknow-
able, how mysterious God is until we meet Him in His revela-
tion. Here alone do we understand that all our own processes of
knowing, just because they are our own, do not create the
true knowledge of God, since through them — whether in a
profound or in a superficial way — we remain in our own sphere.
The nature divinity is not really mysterious, nor is the god of
reason or of Spirit, which we conceive within the sphere of our
reason, of our mind, of our Self; He alone is mysterious who
comes to us from a region beyond all spheres known to us, who
breaks through the barriers of our own experience of the world
and the Self, and enters into our world as one who does not
belong to it.

From the standpoint of our own knowledge Faust is per-
fectly right: "Who can name Him, and who can confess T

ii8

THE NAME OF GOD

know Him'? The name is an echo, resounding amid clouds of
fragrant incense, conceahng a heavenly glow". But this Name-
less One is certainly not the truly Mysterious One; the Mys-
terious One is He who makes His Name known to us in His
own revelation.

"I will proclaim the Name of the Lord before thee; and will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on
whom I will shew mercy. "^ Because the revelation of the Name
is the self-manifestation of the God who is free, and exalted
high above this world, it is this alone which confronts us with
the real mystery of God. Hence the revelation of the Name of
God stands in the centre of the Biblical witness to revelation.

At first, it is true, in the beginning of the history of revela-
tion, the "Name", the "Proper Name" of the God of Israel,
means the Name of Yahweh, which distinguishes the God of
Israel from the gods of the other nations, and enables those
who share in the divine Covenant to call upon Him, their God.
So long as a plurality of "gods" formed part of the thought-
world of the time the "Proper Name" of the True God was a
necessity.2 But at the zenith of the Old Testament revelation
both ideas have disappeared. The name of Yahweh remains, it
is true, but it is no longer a proper name. Nor in the teaching of
the great prophets is there any trace of primitive magic con-
nected with the Name, or of any other magical conceptions. 3
And yet this conception, the conception of the "name of the
Lord", remains at the very heart of the Message of the Old
Testament revelation. It is still present within the New Testa-
ment, where the Name of Yahweh has entirely disappeared.
The first clause of the Lord's Prayer is: "Hallowed be Thy
Name." In the Gospel of John — where Jesus Christ, at the end
of His life on earth, is gathering up everything that God has
done through Him, and has given to the world — Jesus says, in
the High Priestly Prayer: "I have manifested Thy Name", 4
and His last petition for His "own" is this: "keep through
Thine own Name those whom Thou hast given me, that they
may be one, as we are. "5

We ask: Why is it that in the Bible this incomparable signi-
ficance is attached to the idea of the "Name" of God? Strangely
enough this question is rarely discussed by theologians, and still

• Exodus 33: 19.

» Cf. Judges 11: 23 ff.; 2 Kings 3: 27; i Sam. 26: 19.

3 Cf. Grether, Name u. Wort Gottes im Alien Testament, 1934, P- ^9-

4 John 17: 6. s John 17: 11.

119

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

less often is it satisfactorily answered. ^ We here anticipate our
answer — which will be fully worked out in the following pages
— by this summary statement : this high significance is ascribed
to the idea of the "Name of God" within the Biblical revelation
because it gathers up, in a simple way which everybody can
understand, certain decisive elements in the reality of revela-
tion: God stands "over against us"; we stand "over against"
Him; God is not an "It" but a "Thou"; who addresses us; He
makes Himself known through His self -revelation ; He manifests
Himself to us in order that we may call upon Him and have
communion with Him. The "Name" of God covers both the
revealed Nature of God and His revealing action; the founda-
tion of this revelation in Being and in Act is the Divine will to
sovereignty and communion, the purpose of which is the glory
of God and communion with God. Thus the Biblical conception
of the "Name", and the "manifestation of the Name", contains
the meaning of the whole Biblical doctrine of God. We must
now proceed to define this in more detail, showing the founda-
tion for our statements.

(i) God is known only where He Himself makes His Name
known. Apart from this self -manifestation He is unknowable;
from our point of view He is remote, inaccessible. The "Name"
is that which is peculiar to Himself, it is that which distin-
guishes Him from all else, that which cannot be expressed by
any general conception; which is not an object of human know-
ledge of any kind ; we cannot discover it by the exercise of our
own faculty of reason; it is a knowledge which — in the strict
sense of the word — can only be given.

The Greek Fathers made a great mistake (and this error
bore disastrous fruit) in turning the Name of Yahweh (and
especially the Name as described by the Elohist writer in the
narrative of the revelation of the Divine Name on Horeb^ into
an ontological definition. The words "I am that I am" ought
not to be translated in the language of speculative thought, as
a definition: "I AM He who is." To do this not only misses
the meaning of this statement, but it turns the Biblical idea of
revelation into its opposite. The "Name" which cannot be
defined is turned into a definition. The meaning of the Sacred
Name is precisely this: I am the Mysterious One, and I will to
remain so; I am that I am. I am the Incomparable, therefore
I cannot be defined nor named. This description is similar

' Compare Appendix on pp. 128 ff. * Exod. 3: 14 ft.

120

THE NAME OF GOD

to that in the Book of Judges, which is intended to warn
man off "holy ground": "Why askest thou thus after My
Name?" God is the Unknown God, until He makes Himself
known. I

This does not mean that pagans have no knowledge of God
at all; such a foohsh statement, and one which is utterly con-
trary to experience, does not occur anywhere in the Bible. ^ But
it does mean that those who do not possess the historical revela-
tion, those to whom God has not made known His Name, do
not know Him truly, do not know Him in such a way that they
are in communion with Him. The pagan — or what comes to the
same thing in the end — philosophical knowledge of God, 3 does
not create communion with God, because it is not knowledge of
the God who — since He makes Himself known — creates com-
munion with Himself.

Even the man to whom God has not made His Name known
is not without a certain knowledge of God ; for a knowledge of
the Creator forms part of the creaturely existence of man. 4 But
this possibility of knowing God is not sufficient to remove the
sinful blindness of man. It extends to the point of making man
"without excuse", but it does not suffice to bring him to glorify
God and to enter into communion with Him. In sinful man this
natural knowledge of God becomes necessarily the delusion of
idolatry, or — what amounts to the same thing in principle —
the abstract, impersonal idea of God. Man who is left alone
with Nature and with himself does not know the true God,
because he does not know the God of revelation, the God whose
Nature it is to be the Revealer, the one who communicates
Himself. God in His Self-communication — that is the Name of
God; hence where God does not make His Name known. He
cannot be known aright.

(2) Secondly, the concept, the "Name" of God, suggests
further that God is Person : He is not an "It" ; He is our primary
"Thou". That which we can think and know by our own efforts
is always an object of thought and knowledge, some thing
which has been thought, some thing which has been known,
therefore it is never "Person". Even the human person is never
truly "person" to us so long as we merely "think" it; the
human being only becomes "person" to us when he speaks to

' Grether, op. cit., pp. 6 ff . and Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments, I,
pp. 89 ff.

» Cf. below, pp. 132 ff. 3 Cf. below, pp. 151 ff. 4 Rom. i : 19.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

US himself, when he manifests the mystery of his being as a
"thou", in the very act of addressing us.

The "Thou" is something other than the "Not-I"; the
"Not-I" is the world, the sum-total of objects. But the "Thou"
is that "Not-I" which is an "I" (or a Self) as I am myself, of
which I only become aware when it is not thought by my own
efforts, or perceived as an object, but when it makes itself
known to me as self -active, self-speaking, as "I-over-against
me".

It is true, of course, that to a certain extent we can know the
human "thou" by our own efforts, because, and in so far as it
is "also an I", a fellow-human being. The mystery of human
personality is not absolute; it is only relative, because it is not
only "other than I" but "the same as I". It can be placed
under the same general heading "Man" along with me; it is not
an unconditioned "Thou" because it is at the same time a
"co-I", There is no general heading for God. God in particular
has no "I" alongside of Himself. He is the "Thou" which is
absolutely over against everything else, the "Thou" who can-
not at the same time be on the same level with "me", "over-
against" whom He stands.

Therefore I cannot myself unconditionally think God as this
unconditioned "Thou", but I can only know Him in so far as
He Himself, by His own action, makes Himself known to me.
It is, of course, true that man can think out a God for himself —
the history of philosophy makes this quite plain. ^ In extreme
cases a man can "think" a personal God; theistic philosophy is
a genuine, even if an extreme possibility. But this personal God
who has been conceived by man remains some-thing which has
been thought, the object of our thought-world. He does not
break through the barriers of my thought-world, acting, speak-
ing, manifesting Himself — He does not meet me as a "Thou",
and is therefore not a real "Thou". He is, as something which I
have thought, my function, my positing; He is not the One who
addresses me, and in this "address" reveals Himself to me as
the One who is quite independent of me.

The God who is merely thought to be personal is not truly
personal; the "Living God" who enters my sphere of thought
and experience from beyond my thought, in the act of making
Himself known to me, by Himself naming His Name — He
alone is truly personal.

It is the prerogative of persons to possess a name. Things

' Cf. below, pp. 151 ff.
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THE NAME OF GOD

have no names: we describe them in general terms, which we
make more specific by using other general terms, as, for in-
stance, "the house, the first in the street ... on the left". Even
animals do not possess names; when we give them names, we
"personify" them; we lift them out of their own plane on to the
level of personal existence. The "name" means personal being,
that kind of being which we do not know and name of our-
selves, but which "presents" itself to us, by naming its own
name. We human beings have proper names, by which we
present ourselves to each other as something that cannot be
expressed in general terms. The proper name cannot be re-
peated: it is unique; therefore it cannot be turned into a defini-
tion.

But our human proper name is only a relative proper name
since it is at the same time the name of a species. Our individual
personal being is articulated out of that which is common to
the existence of all men as a whole. We have two names, the
human name and the proper name — and it belongs to the
nature of man to have these two names, the general one and
the "personal" one.

But the Name of God is only a "Proper Name" because it
does not stand alongside of a general conception, of an appella-
tion. The plural "gods" is an insult to God; it belongs to the
Nature of God that there should be "none other beside Him".
Therefore He cannot be known through general conceptions,
but only through the naming of His own Name. The truly
personal God is He who is not known through thought, but
through the manifestation of His Name, the God of revelation.

(3) The communication of a name is the disclosure of one's
self to the other, and thus the establishment — or at least the
beginning — of a personal relation and communion. When one
gives oneself to be known, one gives oneself away. There is an
element of truth in that primitive magical idea — which can be
discerned even in the Old Testament^ — that with the disclosure
of the name one gives away something of oneself, and that,
conversely, to know the name of a person gives one a power
over him. In the divine revelation of the Name there lies a two-
fold truth: God gives Himself to those to whom He reveals
Himself, and these, for their part, now have a certain right to
Him — even though it is a right which has been given them —
those to whom He makes His Name known have become "His

I Grether, op. cit., p. 19.
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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

own". They can and may now call upon Him. He gives them
free access to His Majesty, which otherwise could not be
approached. The disclosure of a name creates communion.
Therefore the disclosure of the Name of God is consummated
in the self -offering of the Revealer. "I have manifested Thy
Name unto the men whom Thou gavest Me ..." says Jesus on
the night before His Crucifixion, and in anticipation of it.
There, too, He also tells us the purpose of this manifestation of
the "Name": "Keep through Thine own Name those whom
Thou hast given Me, that they may he one, as we are." When
Yahweh manifests His Name He makes the Covenant with
Israel; when Jesus in His own Person makes known fully and
finally the personal mystery of God, He establishes communion
between the Holy God and sinful man.

Even in that apparently primitive and anthropomorphic
passage in the Book of Exodus where Yahweh promises to
"proclaim the Name of the Lord" to Moses, this proclamation
of the Name of God by God Himself is connected with the
sovereign, freely electing, grace of God: "I will be gracious to
whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will
shew mercy." God's self-manifestation is the act by which God
steps out of the sphere of His own glory and self-sufficiency, in
which the One who exists for Himself alone becomes the One
who exists for us.

Or rather, it is the act in which God shows us that He is
the One who exists "for us". In that He gives His Name He
graciously summons us to make use of His Name, by calling upon
Him. He wills to be present to us, when we call upon Him:
"Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and
thou shalt glorify Me".^ The disclosure of the Name establishes
the connexion which man may and should use henceforth.
And only through the fact that God becomes for us the One
upon whom it is possible to call, does He become to us a real
"Thou", the truly personal God.

(4) Thought that has been fed on philosophical abstractions
therefore finds the concept of the Name of God, and the revela-
tion of the Name, to be an anthropomorphic degradation,
making God finite, which cannot be permitted. This is quite in
order, it would indeed be very surprising if such a protest were
not made. Only we must be clear how far this goes, how funda-
mental it is. Then we perceive that behind this reproach of

• Ps. 50: 15.

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THE NAME OF GOD

"anthropomorphism" Hes nothing less than the rejection of
revelation, and this means the rejection of the truly personal
God. The self-sufficient reason will not admit anything that
comes from a sphere beyond its own possibilities. It wishes to
remain isolated ; it has no desire to receive ; it will only acknow-
ledge as truth that which, from the very outset, belongs to its
own sphere.

People who think like this want to keep their minds closed to
all that comes to them from outside the sphere of reason, the
sphere, that is, which they can control by their own thought ;
they do not wish to see it opened from outside. They recognize
only the truth which they already know, and that which can be
verified by means which are at man's disposal. They have no
intention of admitting that there could be such a thing as
"given" truth. They will accept as truth only that which they
can attain for themselves, but not that which approaches
them from without. They will only receive — and this is the
same thing in the end — monological and not dialogical truth,
only truth which is preceded by the words: "I think", but not
that which is prefaced by the words: "Here it is!" that is, truth
which they can only receive in this way. Thus this habit of
thought is rooted in the self-sufficiency of the isolated "I":
Cogito, ergo sum.

But the revelation of the Name of God means the end of this
self-sufficient isolation of the Self, the end of this truth which is
shut up within the Self, the end of this unbroken continuity, of
this truth which can be attained by the efforts of man alone.
Revelation means that this self-centred circle has been broken
down ; the truth comes in its own way and in its own power, to
you. You do not possess it, it is not in you, it is given to you.^
It is not that you are the starting-point, and God is the End,
but that God is the starting-point, and you are the end of the
movement. That which is disclosed does not start with you, the
subject, as if that which you know were your own object of
knowledge, but the disclosure starts from the other, from the
non-Self, but which, precisely because it opens and is not
opened, is not an object, not something which has been thought
but it is a subject: the "Thou" who opens His heart unto you,
and in so doing becomes the power which breaks down your
self-centred isolation and makes an end of your self-sufficiency.

This is the decision, which is accomplished in faith in the
revelation of the Name, and in the One who reveals His Name;

« Cf. Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, pp. 12 ff., German ed.

125

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

what is at stake is the autonomy of the human personahty. If
this is retained, then no faith is possible; the zone of self-
sufficiency is unbroken, the message of the God who manifests
His Name is rejected as "anthropomorphism". But if, on the
other hand, the revelation of the Name is believed, then the
autonomy of the cogito ergo sum is rejected ; the Self is no longer
the final court of appeal, but the Divine Thou. Then self-
sufficiency is no longer the standard of all truth, but the final
highest truth is now truth which has been given, and this
truth becomes real and living in God's approach to man, in the
gracious movement of God towards man — God comes down to
our level — this is the "truth" which is the same as "grace".
"Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."''

The self which is imprisoned within its own sphere can only
call this "mythology" or "anthropomorphism"; the very fact
that it makes these judgments shows that it is imprisoned
within its own limits. The correlate of this self -imprisonment,
however, is the impersonal God, the God who does not stand
"over against" the Self, who does not address it, who does not
reveal Himself, who does not alter the situation of the Self by
His own initiative, the God who belongs to the thought-world
of the Self, who, in the last resort, is the ground of the Self, the
deepest content of the word "I", the God therefore who is never
addressed as "Thou", and can never be called upon as "Thou".
The "God of the philosophers" is the God to whom one does
not pray, with whom, it is true, one can be united — but this
unity is one of thought only, one in which one thinks the "deepest
truth" by one's own efforts — but here there is no communion —
no communion established by God Himself. This is the point
of the assertion that all this talk about the revelation of the
Name of God is "primitive anthropomorphism". This argument
is simply the despairing defence of the Self which wants to be
left alone in its isolation, which does not want to open up,
which does not want to be forced out of its position as the centre
of existence, which wants to assert itself against the God who
created it. Hence the "anthropomorphism"-argument cannot
be countered by argument, because it is not merely an error,
but sin, namely, the sin of the man who wills to be his own god,
who will tolerate no other god than that which is identical with
the deepest ground of the Self.

This, then, is what is meant by the idea of the Name of God,
an idea which is so repellent to those who defend the philo-

' John I, 17.

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THE NAME OF GOD

sophical Idea of God, and one which is so decisive for the
BibHcal testimony: the disclosure of the mystery of the nature
of the true personal God through revelation, which can only be
known in this revelation as the nature of the God who imparts
Himself. The God of revelation is the God who can only be
known through revelation; God, as He is conceived outside this
revelation is quite different; He is something that has been
thought, hence He is not personal; He is not the One whose
nature it is to communicate Himself. Thus the Name of God
means the indissoluble unity of the nature of God with the
revelation, not only in the sense that it is the nature of revela-
tion, but that it is the nature of the God of revelation.

The Nature of God is the will to impart Himself. We do not
speak of the True God if we do not speak of Him who imparts
Himself, who wills to be for us, not for Himself alone. Of this
God, however, whose nature it is to impart Himself, we can
only speak on the basis of His self-manifestation. God's "willing-
ness to impart 'Himself" can indeed be perceived nowhere save
in the act, in the event of His self-impartation. Only in His
presence in revelation is God to be known as He is, who He is ;
only there can He be known as the One who is "for us", where
He really is present for us, where He discloses Himself in His
presence in revelation. Hence the Name of God is only com-
pletely revealed where God comes to us personally in Jesus
Christ. There alone does He make known the absolute character
of His will to be "for us", where He gives Himself for us. Thus
truth is identical with grace: "Grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ."

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APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 12

(l) THE NAME OF GOD IN THE BIBLE AND IN THE HISTORY OF
THEOLOGY

The small part the conception of the "Name of God" plays
in the dogmatic work of the Church is in striking contrast to
the witness of Scripture, which shows — by the very fact of its
frequent use — that it is one of the most important ideas in the
Bible. In the Old Testament there are nearly one hundred
passages, and in the New Testament more than two hundred,
which deal with the "Name of the Lord". Above all, the Biblical
statement leaves no room for doubt that here we are concerned
with the centre of the whole history of revelation and salva-
tion. To use the language of the Biblical-theological Worter-
huch, "The Name of God denotes all that God is for man, and
it is intended that this truth will cause men to know God; for
men, it is the expression of all that God is, since it gathers up
all that they know of God, and have in Him. Thus it is the
concentrated expression of their knowledge of God which is
derived from God Himself — for they owe it to the self-activity
of God; He is the source, and the means, of their relation with
God. ... In His "name" God turns towards man, or in the
fact that He utters His Name to them, they know what they
possess in Him. . . . The Name of God is the expression of all
that God is as the saving revelation . . . and it is not only an
expression intended for the communication of knowledge, for
man's use, ... it serves to designate the relation of, and inter-
course between, person and person" (Hermann Cremer's
Biblisch-theologisches Worterbuch, published by J. Kogel, ed. II,
p. 800).

The idea of the "Name of God" plays almost no part in the
theology of the Early Church, or of the Mediaeval Church, in
the Biblical sense of the word. On the other hand, it plays a
very dubious part, since the Name which was made known on
Sinai, especially the interpretation given in E^ (Exodus 3 : 14)
of the Name "I am that I am", was adopted by speculative
theology and made the foundation of its identification of
speculative ontology with the Biblical Idea of God. There are
possibly few passages in the Scriptures which have been quoted
and expounded more often in mediaeval theology than this

' Where the general term "Elohim" is used for God, instead of the personal
Name "Yahweh". (Tr.)

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APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 12

phrase. Even the Fathers of the Church used it: for instance,
Athanasius {Epistula de synodis, 35) ; Hilary [De Trin. L, I,
nr. 5) ; Gregory Nazianzen [Orationes, 30, 18), and many others.
(See the relevant passages in Rouet de Journel: "Enchiridion
patristicum" on Exod. 3: 14.) The real trouble, however, only
started with the penetration of the Neo-Platonic idea of the
identification of the summum esse and the summum bonum,
that is, through Augustine: "Nefas est autem dicere ut suhsistat
et suhiit Deus honitati suae atque ilia bonitas non substantia vel
potius essentia, neque Deus sit bonitas sua, sed in ilia sit tanquam
ubiecto; unde manifestum est Deum abusive substantiam vocari, ut
nomine usitatiore intellegatur essentia" {De Trin. 7, 5, 10).
Augustine believes that he has found the point at which the
Bible and Plato say the same thing: "Vehementer hoc Plato
tenuit et diligentissime commendavit." No one ever said this
before Plato save in this passage in the Book of Exodus {De
Civ. Dei, VIII, II). Maritain, indeed, is right when — speaking
of this text, understood in this sense, he says: "Such passages
contain virtually the whole Thomist doctrine of the Divine
Names and of the analogy" {La sagesse augustinienne, p. 405).
In reality the Biblical text does not say this at all. Quite
apart from the fact that the interpretation of the Name of
Yahweh in the sense of E plays no part in the whole of the Old
Testament, and "the honour given to the Name of Yahweh is
completely independent of its etymology" {Grether, op. cit.,
p. 15), even the interpretation given in E is quite different from
that of "the One who is", or even "Being". (In addition to
Grether, see also Eichrodt, op. cit., I, pp. 91 ff.). Even the
Septuagint rendermg contains a hint of philosophical suggestion
which is entirely absent from the Hebrew text. "The Tetra-
grammaton lays the stress not upon God's Being as He is in
Himself, but upon His Being as it comes forth in revelation,
not upon the Deus absolutus, but upon the Deus revelatus"
(Grether, p. 7). The mediaeval use of the general interpretation
of the Name of Yahweh (in the sense of E) has led to quite
disastrous misunderstanding. The chapters in this book which
deal with the Being of God and His Attributes, in their opposi-
tion to the mediaeval ontology, will show on what my opinion
is based. It would be well worth while to write a critical his-
torical account of the exposition of Exodus 3 : 14.

It is not only the Name of Yahweh, however, expounded in a
speculative manner, which plays an important — though essen-
tially negative — part in mediaeval scholastic theology, but also

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the notion of the Divine Names. Here, too, the "Areopagite"
was a pioneer. His work, De Divinis nominibus, founded a
school of thought. But what he discusses (in this book) under
the title of the "Names of God", has nothing to do with what
the Bible says about the Name of God. In this book the author
is dealing with the question: To what extent are the ideas with
which we, by means of thought, can try to conceive the Divine
Being, adequate for the task? Naturally the answer is entirely
negative: God is the One who cannot be named; all our ideas
are inadequate. The Divine Nature is unspeakable. Certainly,
just as the Divine Being is "nameless", so also it can be des-
cribed by all kinds of names, just as the One who transcends all
existence is also the All-existing (I, 6). We can therefore say
everything about God as well as nothing.

Thomas Aquinas [Summa iheoL, I, 13) introduced this doc-
trine of the Name of God into his system. By the "Name of
God" he, too, understands the ideas by means of which we can
"think" God; he, too, has nothing to say about the Biblical
understanding of the Name of God. He has eliminated the
pantheistic element in tlie Neo-Platonic teaching of his master,
it is true, because at every vital point, by means of the idea of
causality, he introduces the thought of Creation, which plays
no part in the thought of the Areopagite. Through the fact that
to him (Aquinas) the creaturely, as God's creation, is analogous,
the creaturely ideas also acquire the validity of analogical
truths. But all this remains within the sphere of the specula-
tive theologia naturalis and is therefore diametrically opposed
to all that is meant by the Biblical idea of the "Name of God".

In Reformation theology there are no longer any fanciful
etymological speculations in connexion with the Name of
Yahweh; the link — established by Augustine — between Neo-
platonic ontology and the Biblical knowledge of God has dis-
appeared. The Biblical meaning of the idea of the "Name of
God" now comes into its own. Luther teaches in the Larger
Catechism, on the occasion of the explanation of the first
clause (in the Lord's Prayer) that the Name of God "non aliam
oh causam nobis revelatum est quam ut utentibus sit fructuosum" ,
and thus God is glorified. "To be baptized into the Divine
Name" means "ab ipso Deo baptizari". And the Augustana
(Miiller, Die symbolischen Biicher der ev. luth. Kirche, p. 105)
says: "Nomen significat causam quae allegatur propter quam
contigit salus." Here the personalist meaning, and its connexion
with revelation, has been rediscovered as the meaning of the

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APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 12

Idea: the "Name" is the self-revelation which creates com-
munion. In post-Reformation theology it was Chemnitz, in the
main, who saw the significance of this idea for the right doctrine
of God: "Deus vult iia cognosci et invocari sicut se patefacit" . . .
A theologian of the Cross does not speak of the nameless
Majesty of the Absolute, but he clings to the revealed Name of
God. "De Deo non aliter sentiendum quam sicut se sen nomen eius
[Christi) dato verbo revelavit" (Chemnitz, Loci theologici).

The Principle of Scripture, rightly understood, is identical
with the theology of the revealed Name of God.

Among the Reformed theologians, the perception of the
significance of the idea of the "Name of God" is less clear than
in the thought of Luther and his closest disciples ; this is true in
particular of all (Protestant) Scholastics, both Lutheran and
Reformed. In the thought of Calvin the tendency to take a
rigidly literal view of the Bible, which developed into the
doctrine of Verbal Inspiration, comes out in the fact that
Revelation and 'Scripture are regarded as identical; thus the
connexion between revelation and the Name of God was lost.
In Calvin's thought, too, there was a stronger tendency to lean
upon Augustine, which made him less critical of Augustine's
Neo-Platonism than Luther was. But — for the whole of post-
Reformation theology — it was serious that "Natural Theology"
was reintroduced in the sense that the doctrine of God was
opened with a chapter entitled "de existentia et notione dei", in
which the various Proofs for the Existence of God are classified
and discussed. The theology based on revelation once more
leans on Natural Theology.

It is strange that even in the revival of Biblical-Reformation
theology — whether on the "Biblical" or on the "Confessional"
side — there seems little or no understanding of the importance
of the Name of God. The only exception, so far as I know — here,
too, as at so many other points — is von Oettingen, who begins
his work on the Doctrine of God with a chapter on the Name of
God {Lutherische Dogmatik, II, I, pp. 54 fi.) : "The power to
know God . . . depends on the fact that God knows Himself,
and through His revealed Name . . . which we as human beings
can grasp . . . draws near to us" (p. 66). Even with Karl Barth,
whose fundamental tendency should have attracted him to
this subject, we miss any adequate estimate of the significance
of the idea of the Name of God.^ On the other hand, the in-
creasing tendency among so many dogmatic theologians to

» Save for a slight suggestion in II, i, p. 306.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

devote their attention to particular names of God in the Bible
must be regarded as an unfruitful proceeding.

(2) THE "natural" knowledge OF GOD) THE PROBLEM OF THE
"theologia NATURALIS"

In recent times, and rightly, the question whether — from the
standpoint of the Christian Faith — God can be known outside
the historical revelation, is to be answered in the affirmative, or
in the negative, is now regarded as a fundamental problem and,
like few other problems of this kind, has led to varied and
passionate controversies. The very fact of the passionate feeling
which has been aroused (a display of emotion which in itself
may be deplored) and with which this conflict has been waged,
shows that we are here dealing with a decisive question of the
first importance. But here, too, the passionate concern for clarity
of thought has not always been an advantage ; it has indeed led
to misunderstandings and misinterpretations which create
grave hindrances to the clarification of the problem. Since I
myself, by the use of a misleading idea, am bound to admit that
I have caused some of the chief misunderstanding, I feel
obliged to make yet another attempt to clear up the difficulty.

(i) First of all, we must make a clear distinction between two
questions which, unfortunately, are continually being confused
with one another: the question of the revelation in Creation,
and the question of man's natural knowledge of God. While
one side was mainly anxious to deny the validity of a "theologia
naturalis", the other side was chiefly concerned to affirm the
reality of the revelation in Creation. Now some theologians
believed (mistakenly) that their denial of a "theologia naturalis"
obliged them also to deny the reality of the revelation in
Creation ; this was due to their mistaken idea that the acknow-
ledgment of a revelation in Creation must necessarily lead to
the recognition of a "theologia naturalis". I myself, however,
helped to foster this mistaken equation of the revelation in
Creation with Natural Theology (which I contested from the
very outset), to this extent, that in the first edition of Natur und
Gnade I described the Christian doctrine of the revelation in
Creation by the misleading expression of a "Christian theologia
naturalis" . On the other side, however, it is evident that the
correction of this unfortunate phrase, to which I drew special
attention in the second edition of this brochure, has not been
noticed;

The affirmation of a revelation in Creation has, in itself,

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APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 12

nothing whatever to do with a behef in Natural Theology. A
theology which intends to remain true to the Biblical witness
to revelation should never have denied the reality of revelation
in Creation. All efforts to contest the Biblical evidence for such
a revelation must lead to an arbitrary exegesis, and to forced
interpretations of the text of the Bible. But even apart from
explicit Biblical evidence, the Christian Idea of the Creator
should itself force us to admit the reality of a revelation in
Creation ; for what sort of Creator would not imprint the mark
of His Spirit upon His Creation ?

(ii) The question whether the "natural man", that is, the
man who has not yet been affected by the historical revelation,
is in a position to perceive this divine revelation in Creation as
such, in accordance with its nature and its meaning, is a quite
different question. This question, therefore, has not been
answered when we have answered the former question in the
affirmative, because between the revelation in Creation and the
natural man there stands the fact of Sin.

If it is a mistake, and from the standpoint of the Bible and
theology an impossibility, to contest the reality of the revela-
tion in Creation, it is no less mistaken to deny the negative
significance of sin for the perception of the truth of the revela-
tion in Creation. Sin not only perverts the will, it also "obscures"
the power of perceiving truth where the knowledge of God is
concerned. So where a man supports the view of the reality of
a "theologia naturalis" in the sense of correct, valid knowledge,
he is actually denying the realitj^ of sin, or at least its effect in
the sphere of man's knowledge of God. Thus, on the one hand,
the reality of the revelation in Creation is to be admitted, but,
on the other hand, the possibility of a correct and valid natural
knowledge of God is to be contested.

(iii) Now, however, the problem is complicated by the fact
that when we have said that we must question the possibility of
a valid knowledge of God (to the natural man) , we have not said
all there is to say. There is, it is true, no valid "natural theo-
logy", but there is a Natural Theology which, in fact, exists.
The place to discuss this, however, is not in connexion with the
doctrine of God, for here it has no theological validity, but in
connexion with the doctrine of Man; for "natural theology" is
an anthropological fact, which no one can deny. Human beings,
even those who know nothing of the historical revelation, are
such that they cannot help forming an idea of God and making
pictures of God in their minds. The history of the religions of

133

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

mankind provides incontrovertible evidence of this fact. The
formation of theological ideas is an empirical fact of the reality
of sinful humanity. This fact cannot be denied ; all that we can
contest is how it should be interpreted. From the standpoint
of the Christian Faith, on the basis of the Biblical testimony,
how are we to interpret this fact ?

(iv) The chief passage in the Bible which deals with this
question — Romans i : 19 ff. — gives the interpretation which
alone can stand the test of theological examination. The fact
that sinful human beings cannot help having thoughts about
God is due to the revelation in Creation. The other fact, that
human beings are not able rightly to understand the nature
and meaning of this revelation in Creation is due to the fact
that their vision has been distorted by sin.

"Sin obscures men's vision to such an extent that in the
place of 'God' they 'know' or imagine 'gods' ... so that
God's revelation in Creation is turned into lying pictures of
idols" {Naiur und Gnade, First ed., p. 14). In this sentence I
tried to say three things : {a) that the revelation in Creation is
a reality; {h) that Natural Theology, as a legitimate possi-
bility, does not exist; (c) that the fact of Natural Theology as
an empirical fact, as something which belongs to the nature of
the natural man, is understood in its ambiguity. But the
doctrine of the Apostle, in spite of its brevity, takes us a step
further.

(v) The Apostle cannot be interested in the theoretical
question: how are we to explain the "theologia naturalis" of the
pagan sinful man or woman; but the question which interests
him is this: How should we address the man to whom the
message of Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed ? This question he
answers thus: Sinful man is responsible for his sin, because in
the revelation in Creation the possibility is given him of know-
ing God. He is responsible for his idolatry : he is dvaTToXoyrjTos,
"without excuse". Thus, according to the Biblical teaching,
the doctrine of general revelation becomes actual in anthro-
pology. Human responsibility is based upon the general revela-
tion.

The quality that makes man "human" is derived from the
revelation in Creation, from the relation which God established
at the very outset between man and the Creator. Responsible
existence — that is, the existence of man in contrast to that of
every other creature, is his existence as person. Even sinful man
does not cease to be a responsible person; this responsible per-

134

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 12

sonal existence, which is grounded in the Creation, cannot be
lost.

It is very cheering to note that Karl Barth, in his exposition
of the narrative of the Creation in Genesis i : 26ff . has come to
the same conclusion. The fact that man has been created in the
Image of God (taught in this passage) means responsible exist-
ence, the "Thou" -relation with the Creator, which is the basis
of the "Thou"-relation with one's fellow man; and this fact:
namely, that we have been created in the Image of God, cannot
be lost {Kirchl. Dogm., Ill, I, p. 224).

The Fall does not mean that man ceases to be responsible,
but that he ceases to understand his responsibility aright, and
to live according to his responsibility. Sin, far from eliminating
responsibility, and thus this vestige of the Imago Dei, is, on the
contrary, a witness to God- willed responsibility, just as the
sinful illusion of idolatry is a witness to the God-given revela-
tion in Creation. The idolatrous images of man — whether they
be the massive .structures of wood or brass, or the idolatrous
abstractions of speculative theology — accuse man, because to
him has been given another possibility of the knowledge of
God. It is sin which makes idols out of the revelation in Creation.

(vi) This Biblical view of the natural man, and of his theologia
naturalis, can, and must, be examined in the light of historic
facts. What is the result of this examination?

The history of religions shows that mankind cannot help
producing religious ideas, and carrying on religious activities. It
also shows the confusion caused by sin. The multiplicity of
religious ideas of God, and of the "gods", is so vast, and so
contradictory, that it is impossible to gather it all up in one
positive conception, as the result of research; to reach such a
result by a process of elimination is not the task of religion
itself but of philosophy. Whither it leads will be shown directly.

Within this welter of religious conceptions of God it is im-
possible to discover one common denominator. The "higher
religions" are contrasted with the primitive religions, and the
contradictions are too great to be overcome. There is no common
element which could do justice at the same time to the poly-
theistic personalism of the one, and the monistic impersonalism
of the other. (Cf . my Religionsphilosophie protestantischer Theo-
logie, pp. 51 ff. and Offenbarung und Vernunft, pp. 215 ff.)

(vii) From the beginning of Greek philosophy men have
continually tried to reach a clear and certain knowledge of God,
not along the path of religion, but by the way of philosophy,

135

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

by Speculative thought, and thus to overcome the irrationahsm
of the purely religious formation of ideas. These philosophical
doctrines of God now confront one another in irreconcilable
opposition. Above all, none of them can possibly be combined
with the Christian Idea of God. The relation of the "God" of
Plato or of Aristotle with the God of the Biblical revelation is
that of the Either-Or. The same may be said of every other
idea of God which has been attained purely by philosophical
speculation. The reason for this will be given in the next
chapter: the God of thought must differ from the God of
revelation. The God who is "conceived" by thought is not the
one who discloses Himself; from this point of view He is an
intellectual idol. (Cf. Offenharung und Vernunft, pp. 43 ff. and
Chapters 20-23.)

136

CHAPTER 13

GOD, THE LORD

What, then, is the "Name", the revealed Nature of God,
which is disclosed in His revelation? From the standpoint of
the revelation in the Bible there is only one answer — primary,
fundamental, or possible: He reveals Himself as the lord. "I
am the Lord, thy God.''^ God does not define His Nature: He
does not teach us about His Nature. He addresses us as One
who is Himself, and this address which begins with "I" is in
itself the revelation. The theological doctrine of God, therefore,
must not begin with the effort to make an abstract definition
of the Nature of God, but with the description of this majestic
"I, the Lord, thy God".^

"I, even I, am the Lord; and beside Me there is no Saviour"3
— this is the affirmation of Monotheism as opposed to poly-
theism. The uniqueness of God, even in the Jewish creed, in
the Shema of Israel,4 is not an independent theme. The fact
that He is Lord — or more precisely, the way in which God
reveals His sovereignty — implies, as a matter of course, that
no other can lay claim to this title. Because, and in so far as,
Israel has known the Lord, she has known the uniqueness of
God. Monotheism is neither a characteristically Christian view
nor even a Biblical one, save as an inference derived from the
truth that God is the Lord.

Even to begin with the doctrine of the Godhead would not
be in harmony with the testimony of the Biblical revelation.
For even this idea is too rational, too little related to revela-
tion, to be used as the central statement of the Faith which is
based upon revelation. The only passage where it is used
explicitly in the sense of the definition of the Nature (of God)
is not connected with the historical revelation, but the pre-
historical, that is, the revelation in Creation. 5 In harmony with
the historical revelation there is another conception, one
which is clearly related to revelation, which contains, it is true,
both the fact of "deity" and the truth of His L^niqueness, but

' Exod. 20: 2,

» It is no accident that in the Bible more than 1,000 sentences begin with
this Divine "I". 3 Is. 43: ii.

4 Deut. 6: 4. On the exposition of this passage of. Eichrodt, op. cit., p. 113.

5 Rom. i: 20. '^eioTTjq. The related idea deorrjg is to be understood as an
attribute in the only passage where it occurs: Col. 2: 9.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

which, from the very outset, combines both truths with the
"I" who addresses man, containing them as elements in this
Self-existence which is proclaimed in the words: God is the
Lord.

The translators of the LXX were strictly accurate when they
unhesitatingly rendered the Name of Yahweh by the title of
"Lord". The Name of Yahweh, as a proper name, was an his-
torical necessity so long as it was necessary to distinguish this
Lord, the true Lord of Israel, from the false "lords", from the
Baalim of the Near East, which were of no concern to Israel.
For Israel the Name of Yahweh meant from the very beginning
the God of revelation and of the Covenant, who had revealed
Himself to Israel — and to this people alone — as Lord, and
indeed as the Lord who was alone in His sovereignty, and only
thus to be worshipped. This "Lord" was distinguished from all
the Baalim of the surrounding countries by the very fact that
He, in His self-originating action, as the One who was not in-
volved in the course of Nature, but Himself was Lord, had
mightily intervened in History. In this historical revelation He
showed Himself from the outset as One who was quite different
from the Baalim, who were essentially connected with the
course of Nature, and were thought only to manifest them-
selves in the processes of Nature. Yahweh is the One who was not
"there" already, who was not connected with that which was
already given, but the One who elected freely, who Himself
established man's relationship with God, who showed Himself
in His action in history, and in His self-revelation, as the
Lord over all that is "given" and "natural". From His nature
which manifested itself more and more in the historical character
of His revelation, increasingly His uniqueness, and His sove-
reignty over the whole of Nature, His Creative Power, became
known. Once this had taken place, then His proper name
became merely a sign which could finally disappear and, with-
out any danger of confusion with the Baalim, could be replaced
by the title "Lord". "I — Yahweh — I am the lord — and beside
Me there is no Saviour", or, as it was expressed later on: "I am
the Lord". This absolute and unique "I", beside whom there
can be none else: this "I" who alone summons us to "hear"
Him, and this "Thou" to whom alone we are to turn for succour
absolutely — this is the meaning of "Lord", just as in a remark-
able passage in Hosea we read: "It is Thou!" It is from this
point that dogmatic reflection must start, from this absolute
Lord, not from a neutral definition of the Godhead; to it

138

GOD, THE LORD

dogmatics must continually return; to describe this "I" is its
sole task.

(i) This implies that God is vSubject: addressing us, making
Himself known to us.

The God with whom we have to do in faith, is not a Being
who has been discussed or "conceived" (by man) ; He is not an
Ens, a "substance", like the Godhead of metaphysical specula-
tion; He is not an object of thought — even though in a subli-
mated and abstract form — but the Subject who as "I" addresses
us as "thou". God is the Personality who speaks, acts, dis-
closing to us Himself and His will.

Philosophers have always raised objections to the use of the
ideas of "personality" or "person" for the formulation of the
Idea of God, just as they have objected to the idea of the
"Name", on the ground that it is "anthropomorphic". "Who",
they ask, "gives us the right to take the conception of person-
ality, gained from our own human experience, and to apply it
to God?" They contend that to do this makes the Idea of God
finite, which is entirely improper; for even though we may
intensify the concept of personality to the highest degree
possible, this Idea of God still makes Him too human, creaturely
and earthly. The "personal God" is a naive idea, unworthy of
the Divinity, a product of the imagination which delights in
creating myths. "Personality is the specific form of subsistence
of the human spirit or mind as finite. "^ But if we ask: "How,
then, should the statement be worded ? — What are the alterna-
tives to the idea of the Personal God?" — then all the answers
that are given, however they may be expressed, finally say the
same thing: God is an "It", not an "I"; He is an Object of
thought, something that is constructed in thought, not One
who Himself speaks, but a Neuter — an ens a se, ens subsistens
per se, the Absolute, the Inexpressible, the absolute Substance,
etc. God is "the Being who is in Himself Being" (Biedermann),^
"the eternal movement of the Universal which is always making
itself subject" (Strauss). 3 These conceptions of God which are
supposed to be so "spiritual" are, in fact, the attenuated con-
ception of an "object", weakened by abstraction.

Can we really think that a Supreme Object gained by a pro-
cess of abstraction is a more worthy conception of God than

• Biedermann, Dogmatik. Para. 716.

> Op. cit., para. 712.

3 Christliche Glaubenslehre, I, p. 523.

139

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the concept of Person? The highest that we know is not the
"it", the "thing", but the person. We know the person as that
which makes itself known to us through speaking to us, through
reveahng himself in speech. Hence, since God Himself speaks
to us, and in so doing manifests Himself to us, the idea of
"person" is the only one which is appropriate to describe Him.
Now, however, the question whether the application of the
idea of "person" to God is an anthropomorphism, receives a
remarkable answer from the standpoint of the Biblical idea of
God, such an answer indeed, that it cuts away the ground from
underneath the feet of the question itself. The question is not
whether God is personality, but whether man is. It is not the
personal being of God which is "anthropomorphic", but, con-
versely, the personal being of man is a "theomorphism". God
alone is truly Person ; man is only person in a symbolic way, as
a reflection of God, as the Imago Dei. God is only Subject, He
is not also Object; He is the absolute Subject, subject in the
unconditional, unlimited sense. Man, however, is a subject
which is also an object. The Self of man, indeed, is enclosed in
a body, in a material form which fills space; it is therefore
"subject" only in a conditional, limited sense. He is a "Self"
and an "it"; he is personal and impersonal at one and the
same time. Hence man is only "person" in a parabolic, sym-
bolic sense, "person" who is at the same time "not-person", a
"thing". God is pure personality; man is not. That which
constitutes the nature of the "subject" in contradistinction to
that of "object": namely, freedom, positing and not being
posited, thinking and not being thought, that which is abso-
lutely spontaneous, that which is only active and not at the
same time passive, that which only gives and does not at the
same time receive — we cannot infer this from our existence as
"subject" or "person" in such a way that we could then "pro-
ject" it on to God; but we only come to know this truth as the
nature of the God who reveals Himself ; only when we perceive
this do we realize that we — ourselves — as human beings — are
addressed by God; we respond to His Call; and in this act of
response we become aware that we are responsible persons. In
so far as responsibility is the essence of human personal exis-
tence as known to us, it already contains that which constitutes
the basis of this responsibility, that which creates our respon-
sive, responsible nature, the personal being of God as primary.
Human personal existence is the existence which is called into
existence by God. That which the natural man in his conscience

140

GOD, THE LORD

feels dimly as the sense of responsibility, only becomes clear
and plain in the encounter with the God who reveals Himself,
and in this revelation lays His demands upon us. The lord
GOD is the presupposition of our responsible personal being.
Our responsibility springs from His calling; from His self-
revelation as" our Lord we have the knowledge of our personal
dignity, of our symbolic personal being, as the reflection of His
self -revealing, unconditioned, personal dignity, of His majesty

as LORD.

Hence it is so essential that in our thinking about God we
should always start from the original situation of faith: God
who addresses us in His revelation of Himself, God who meets
us as the Sovereign "I", and in so doing alone gives us the
dignity and responsibility of persons. This shows us the con-
fusion that is created when the doctrine of God, instead of
starting from this disclosure of His personal Being as Subject,
starts from any kind of neutral definition of being, such as that
of the theology -determined by Platonism, Aristotelianism, and
Neo-Platonism. The idea of God of faith is only gained in the
sphere of faith, not in that of metaphysical, neutral thinking,
which only produces neutral "objective" results. True theo-
logical thought should never leave the dimension of revelation,
the "I-Thou" relation, in order to pass into the dimension of
the "It". Since thinking about God continually leads theologians
to slip into the tendency to regard Him as an object, they need
continually to reverse this tendency by moving back to the
original situation: revelation-faith. True theology, therefore,
must not only begin with the knowledge of God as the absolute
Subject; its one, its sole task, is to make this clear.

(2) God meets us in revelation as the unconditioned Subject
in such a way that He claims us unconditionally for Himself;
thus He meets us as Absolute Lord. This truth contains two
elements : one ideal, and one actual. The ideal or logical element
is His claim on us ; the actual element is the apprehension of us
in actual fact. God reveals Himself as One who has an absolute
right to lay His claim upon us ; and He reveals Himself as One
who exercises absolute power over us. We gather up both these
elements in the idea of the Divine sovereign majesty. These
two elements — the Ideal and the Actual — which we distin-
guish in the process of thought, are one in revelation itself.
Because God has absolute power. He has the absolute right
over us; and in the fact that He lays His absolute claim upon

141

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

US, we perceive His absolute authority as "Lord". Since God
lays His absolute claim upon us, who are parts of this world.
He reveals Himself to us as absolute Power, the power from
which all other power is derived. Only as this power — as the
power of the Creator — is He able to assert an absolute right
over us. We belong to Him unconditionally, because He has
created us. But we do not first of all know that God is Creator,
and then, on the basis of this knowledge, acknowledge His
sovereignty as Lord; but, because He manifests Himself to us
as the absolute Lord, we know both truths at once: His uncon-
ditional claim (the Ideal) and His absolute power, His being as
Creator (the Actual).

The whole course of the history of revelation bears out this
statement. Israel, first of all, knew Yahweh as "Lord" — and
then as "Creator", not the other way round. Hence the Biblical
idea of the Creator, the one which holds the field in the sphere
of faith, is quite different from the philosophical idea of the
Maker of the world, the prima causa, the Trpcurov klvovv, etc.
The being of God as Creator is that which is known in and
through His Being as Lord. The statement : God is the Creator,
is therefore not a theoretical statement about the way in which
the world came into existence, but it is primarily a statement
about our unconditional responsibility. In revealing Himself as
Lord, God reveals Himself as absolute Subject, who has both
absolute power and fullness of Being.

(3) Mediaeval theology — and its successors in Lutheran and
Reformed scholasticism — describes what we mean by the idea
of "absolute Lord" by three philosophical ideas: Aseity, the
Absolute, and the actus purus. What do these strangely abstract
ideas mean?

The idea of Aseity, first used by St. Anselm,^ that is, of the
"a se esse", expresses the truth that the Being of God is not
dependent, it is not an "esse ab alio" , but an independent being,
an "esse a se". There is no objection to this idea, although at
first sight it looks so remote and abstract, presupposing, of
course, that it is used for a closer definition of the Sovereignty
of God, but not for the speculative, metaphysical, artificial
construction of the Idea of God. This presupposition, however,
is rarely found among the Scholastics — whether of ancient or
of modern times. Indeed, they do not start from revelation, thus
they do not explain what is given in and with this revelation,

» Monologium, 6.
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GOD, THE LORD

but, by means of ontological speculation, by the "Way" of
abstraction, they "construct" the Idea of God. Once this has
happened, these philosophical ideas tend to obscure the Chris-
tian Idea of God, since they weaken the truth of God as Per-
sonal Being.

If, however, we begin at the other end, with the self-revela-
tion of God as Lord, then the idea of Aseity — as well as both
the other conceptions — may serve to clarify our thinking. In
point of fact, the Biblical witness uses expressions which come
very close to this philosophical statement, at least to some
extent — God is the First and the Last;i He is without begin-
ning and without end.^ He "only hath immortality", 3 and He
alone "hath life in Himself". 4 None has created Him, the
Creator of all. None has taught Him, the Thinker of all —
Providences As a closer definition of His Being as Lord, of His
absolute existence as Subject, the idea of Aseity — however it
may be formulated — is indispensable, in spite of the fact that,
on the one hand^ the construction of this idea of Aseity does
not lead us to the idea of God as absolute Lord. The Scholastics
say: the "ens a se" is the personal, the Lord God. We say, the
Lord is, as absolute Subject, "a se" , independent.

It is the same with the idea of the Absolute. This idea plays
a dubiously dual part. The idea of the Absolute, understood
as something neuter, is simply the final abstraction of the idea
of the object, the "It". We may indeed say that "the Absolute"
is the final modification in abstract terms of the idea of the
world. Is it not indeed the idea which is reached by a process of
"leaving out", by abstraction from concrete being, as the most
general conception there can be, beyond all that is particular?

It is, of course, true that modern Idealism believes that it can
get rid of this neutral element in the idea of the Absolute gained
from Being, since it takes the "I" and not the "It" as the
starting-point. That is the meaning of the transition from
Spinoza's "substance" to Fichte's "Self". Here, indeed, by the
way of speculation, it seems as though the idea of the absolute
Subject, and thus of the Lord God, had been attained. But this
is an illusion. For since the idea of the Divine Creation — and
rightly so, from this abstract, speculative point of view — is
rejected as an impossibility for thought ("a creation cannot
possibly be conceived"),^ the being of God and the being of the

' Is. 44: 6. » Gen. i: i; Ps. 102: 23. 3 i Tim. 6: 16.

4 John 5: 26. 5 Job 38.

* Fichte, Ausgewahlte Werke, VI, p. 191.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

world are equated in this instance from the standpoint of the
subject, instead of from that of the object; thus here, too, the
idea of the Absolute merges into something which is neuter, an
"It", even if this "It" is called "Spirit". Here "Spirit"—
because it is not the Creator Spirit — means that which is
ultimate for thought, the final attainment of our thinking, the
Object of our thought. Hence, also, this idea of the Absolute,
in spite of the fact that it starts from the Subject and not from
the Object, is impersonal, and the God whom it conceives is an
impersonal God, and not "the Lord". Therefore the speculative
idea of the Absolute — whether it be conceived in the manner of
Spinoza or of Hegel — in the history of modern thought is op-
posed to the Christian understanding of God, just as it used to
work against it in secret, in earlier days.^

If, however, the idea of the Absolute is not taken as the
basis, but as the means of intellectual clarification of the re-
vealed nature of God's Being, then it is not only useful but
indispensable. Indeed, from the standpoint of the revelation of
God as Lord, we can say: Only God the Lord is truly Absolute.
The Absolute, for the very reason that it is something neuter,
an "It", cannot be truly absolute.

The neutral Absolute is merely distinguished from the non-
Absolute, from the Relative, as the whole is distinguished from
the part, or the presupposition from the concrete statement.
Being, understood in its totality, is the Absolute; thus the
Absolute is never without the non-absolute, this "God" is
never without the world ; or, rather. He is the world as a whole.
Or, from the point of view of the Subject: the absolute Self is
never without the relative, the empirical human "I" (or Self);
God, thus understood, is the "depth of the Self", the "basis of
the Self". In both conceptions, however, God is not the Lord
of the world, nor is He the Lord of the Self. He is not really
above the world and above the Self. In the true sense of the
word, the Lord of the world alone is Absolute, He who created
the world in freedom, and is still creating it, and therefore is
not bound to the world and the Self, but who posits them in
His sovereign freedom and binds them to Himself. Only the
Free is the Absolute; but this One who is Free can never be
known by the way of thought — for only the Necessary can be
found thus, but never the Free. God, as the One who is free, as
the Lord of the Self, and the Lord of the world, can only be
known where, in His free revelation. He gives Himself to be

' On this see below, Chap. 17.
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GOD, THE LORD

known. Only the thought of God which is in accordance with
revelation, as the Creator Lord, fulfils that which the concept
of the Absolute of thought seems to provide: it alone shows
us the truly Unconditioned as the nature of that which is
conditioned neither by being nor by thought. Of Him alone can
it be said that He is "a se esse". Only where this idea of the
Absolute is preceded by the idea of Creator — understood in the
Biblical sense — in which the "a se esse" and the "ab alio esse",
necessity and contingency, are distinguished from each other,
can we speak in the strict sense of an "a se esse" and of the
Absolute, As a clarifying idea alongside of the idea of God
the Lord given in revelation, both these secondary theo-
logical ideas receive their full meaning, while as fundamental
ideas of speculative thought they cannot provide what they
promise.

Finally the third, and at first sight the more remote and the
most abstract of the three conceptions, that of the "actus
purus" , certainly ought not to be rejected in connexion with
the doctrine of God as Lord. It simply states that in God there
is no mere potentiality or receptivity, or need, but that God is
the pure activity who posits, creates, gives. Fundamentally, it
means the same as the formula: God is Spirit, ^ or to be more
exact: God is Pure Spirit: He is not flesh. He is not Basar, that
is. He is not receptive and receiving Nature. ^

In so far as God also suffers in the sense of "suffering with"
(sympathy) ; reacts — in the sense of hearing prayer ; is "thought-
ful" for man — and thus is conditioned in His action, this
receptivity springs wholly out of His free willing and positing,
out of the fact that He makes Himself finite, condescends to us
in free self-limitation, which is based wholly in Himself, in His
freedom. Where He does not make Himself passive, God is
pure activity, spontaneity, freedom. The corresponding Biblical
expression is: the Living God, the God who is the Source of all
life. 3 God alone is pure Energy, while all that we otherwise call
energy also contains the element of indolence, dullness, slack-
ness, in short, that of defective vitality. Only the Spirit, Pure
Spirit, is pure Activity, pure Energy. Only the Subject which
is wholly subject and in no way object, has unconditional free-
dom, unlimited vitality, unlimited independence, purely positing,
originally creative Power.

' Is. 31: 3; John 4: 24.

» otherwise Karl Barth, op. cit., II, i, pp. 300 ff. in remarkable contrast to
the preceding doctrine of the Freedom of God. 3 Ps. 36: 10.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

(4) The sovereign personality of God in the Bible is usually
expressed by the idea of "Creator". This means something
fundamentally different from those philosophical ideas which
are so often taken to be the equivalent of the idea of the Creator;
prima causa, Prime Mover, the Ground of the world, the
Origin. These are all, in their suspiciously neutral character,
fundamentally different from the idea of the Creator and Lord.
A cause is not a Causer, a Prime Mover is not a Creator, a
foundation of the world is not He who calls the world into
existence, the Origin is not the One who originates. One cannot
replace a Subject, an acting Person, by something neuter
without injury.

All these neutral ideas are not only themselves neutral, but
they also leave us neutral ; they do not make any demand upon
us. The fact that we think these ideas does not make us any
different. They do not turn a person who prides himself upon
being the "captain of his soul" into a "servant of God", into a
person who is bound to God in reverence and obedience. We
may hold these ideas, and still remain masters of our own fate ;
since it is indeed we who have conceived these ideas. The
Creator-God, whom man has "conceived" in his own mind, the
prima causa, the Prime Mover, corresponds to the self-deter-
mining existence of the "intellectual", just as the fact of the
Creator, who is man's "Lord", corresponds to the existence of
the believer, of one who loves, receives, and is responsible.
Those abstract apparent equivalents for the idea of the Creator
show themselves to be in opposition to the true idea of the
Creator in the fact that in them God appears to be as much
determined by the world as the world is determined by God.
Those who use them want to overcome, it is true, the panthe-
istic equation of God and the world, and to vindicate the
priority of God over the world. But the}/ are not successful.
The principle of correlation does not permit it. "If the universe
is to be understood through God, then also the Nature of God
must be understood through the universe",^ is a characteristic
statement of one of these philosophical "Theists". The God
who is the result of thought cannot be set free from the thinker
and his world. Philosophical Theism, the effort to "think"
the Creator and the Creation, always remains a hopeless
enterprise.

From this we can understand the protest of the logical
thinker: "Hence the positing of a Creation is the first criterion

' Pringle Pattison, The Idea of God, 1920, p. 304.
146

GOD, THE LORD

of falseness, the denial of such a Creation . . . the first criterion
of truth {sc. philosophical) is the doctrine of religion."

"A creation cannot really be conceived by thought — that is,
by the process of that which we may call genuine thinking . . .
and no human being has ever yet thought thus."' To the con-
tinuity of thought upon which the argument is based there
corresponds the continuity of that which is thus argued : the
God who is conceived by the world and by man is continuous
with man and the world. The necessity for thought which
posits Him, does not leave Him the freedom which belongs to
the true Creator and Lord. In point of fact, the idea of the
Creator of faith — and in this we must admit that Fichte is right
— for one who recognizes nothing but the necessity of thought
is absurd, or so to speak, a sin against the spirit of pure thought.
That which is not necessarily thought is "not really thought";
it is merely the conception of a fanciful imagination. *

The belief in Creation of the Biblical revelation breaks down
the continuity bi self-thought by the fact that it is not man,
but God, who posits it. In this positing God reveals Himself as
the free Lord, and His free underived act as the beginning of
all things. Precisely because this is so the world is posited as a
freely posited, irrational, contingent fact. Never can thought of
itself build up the idea of a contingent, non-necessary, freely-
posited world, just as indeed the very idea of contingency was
unknown in ancient philosophical thought.

The Creator alone is the free Lord God, and only in His free,
self-sovereign revelation is He to be known thus. He gives
Himself to be known — thus, and only because He gives this
truth can its content be the freedom of God.

Thus the Creator God and the Revealer God, Creation and
Revelation, belong together: only the Creator, the free Lord,
who "before" the world, and independently of the world,
creates it in freedom, can be the Revealer who in freedom
testifies to Himself in the world; and only upon the basis of,
and in this free revelation can He be known as the Lord God,
who alone is fully free. Only the God who cannot be conceived
by us, but who gives Himself to us to be known, can truly be
known as Creator; and only the Lord who stands over against
His world and our thought in freedom can reveal Himself

' Fichte, Ausgewahlte Werke, VI, p. 191.

* This is probably the reason why Plato, when he speaks of a Creator of the
world, uses the form of myth. He cannot accept philosophical responsibility
for this idea.

147

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

therein with freedom. Only He who stands free and unhindered
above the law of the world, and above the law of thought, is in
truth Creator and Lord; and the proof of this His freedom
above the law of the world and above the law of thought is His
revelation, the "offence" for thought. This His revelation as
the Lord is, however, not only the "offence" for thought; far
more is it an "offence" to the man who wants to control his
own life ; for this truth makes an end of our self-sufficiency and
makes us the servants of God.

(5) But this is not the last word. The highest manifestation
of His freedom as Lord is not that God claims our obedience for
Himself. The law of the king manifests his rights and his power
as king; but still more does this become evident in the fact that
where a man is to be condemned according to his law the king
acquits him; he has the right to pardon. The highest manifes-
tation of the freedom of God takes place where He sets the
sinner free, where He, the King, gives to the rebel soul the life
which had been forfeited. He proves Himself as Lord, who
stands above the Law which He himself has laid down. Hence
the revelation of God as Lord is not fully completed in the
prophetic revelation; it is only fulfilled where God, as the
generous Giver, in His own Person intervenes in the distorted
relation of man with Him, where He, who has royal claims, in
royal sovereignty takes the part of the accused, and sets him
free from the guilt which separates him, the sinner, from the
Creator.

The self-revelation of God in the claim through the Word of
the Prophets is not the highest point of the revelation of the
Lord, because it is still an indirect revelation which points to
something beyond. The prophetic Word is only an indication
pointing to the Lord, the Lord is not yet Himself present in
person, therefore not in actual sovereignty. This only takes
place where the Ruler Himself is present — just as previously
His Word was present — in the act of revealing Himself. Where
the BaaiXeia. tov ©eov €(f>daaev^ — ^where the Ruler Himself is
actually present, there alone is the Lord revealed as "Lord".
That is why, in the New Testament, the title of "Lord" is
transferred to Jesus. He is the Kvpios because in Him God
exercises His sovereignty in His revealed presence, not merely
any longer vicariously and indirectly through the word of the
Prophets, but directly and immediately through Him who

« Matt. 12: 28.
148

GOD, THE LORD

Himself has royal authority, and can say in His own Person:
"I, I am the Lord." "I therefore say unto you ..."

(6) One final point must be mentioned, in view of the history
of theology. At two points we note the perversion of Christian
theology, which has been caused by the intrusion of speculative
philosophical motives of thought into the thought of revela-
tion: first of all, in the fact that usually the doctrine of the
Nature of God precedes a doctrine of the Existence of God.
Secondly, in the fact that a distinction is made between the
"metaphysical" and the "ethical" definitions in the Idea of
God.

{a) In the chapter "de existentia Dei" usually the various
Proofs for the Existence of God are formulated. This proceeding
is based upon the strange idea that the existence of God must
first of all be established before we can speak of His nature
as manifested in His revelation. This enigma is solved as soon
as we become aware that such thinkers are not dealing so much
with the question of the Nature of God on the basis of His
revelation, as upon the basis of metaphysical speculative ideas.
The doctrine of the "metaphysical" Being of God — that was
the second point — is not only by its content, but also by the
methods of its metaphysics, not theology. If one has departed
so far from the proper path of theology, from the exclusive
orientation towards revelation, then the presupposition of the
Proofs for the Existence of God, in order to make His existence
seem more solid, is not such a great aberration, after all.

Actually, however, behind both these points there lies the
same misunderstanding. The existence of God, of which faith
speaks, proves itself only as completely sufficient where the
Nature of God is manifested: in revelation. In apologetics,
indeed, relations may be established between the revealed
faith, and rational metaphysics, with its Proofs for the existence
of God; but within Christian doctrine itself there is no place
for them.

The God in whom we believe cannot be "proved", and the
God who can be proved is not the God of faith. We do not want,
first of all, to be convinced of the existence of God by Proofs,
and after that to believe in the God of revelation. The existence
of God becomes certain to us in and with the revelation in which
He manifests Himself to us as the Living Lord, and proves
Himself to us.

Whatever value the "Proofs" may have, they are of no con-

149

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

cern for faith. Faith does not want to hear about them. The
God who is "proved" by human reason is not the God who
reveals Himself to man as his Lord.

[b) But even the distinction between "metaphysical" and
"ethical" statements about God arises from the same mis-
understanding. If we have to do with the God of revelation,
who is the Lord, the sovereign "I" — where is the possibility of
making a distinction between the "metaphysical" and the
"ethical"? Is the Sovereign Being of God "metaphysical", or
is it "ethical"? This distinction is only possible where one
starts from a neutral — actually from a metaphysical, specula-
tive— concept of being, but not where — from the very outset —
one has to do with the revelation of the Lord. The Being of
God as Lord, if we must use this somewhat dubious distinction
at all, is both metaphysical and ethical. Metaphysically speak-
ing, it is the ONE who is who alone gives existence to all other
forms of being. Ethically speaking, it is the will of the Lord
from which every kind of ethos is derived. Hence we will now
take leave of this false, misleading distinction as a rudiment of
that "natural theology" with which the Christian doctrine of
God is not concerned.

150

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 13

THE PHILOSOPHICAL IDEA OF GOD IN HISTORY

If we wish to examine the question whether the philosophical
idea of God is necessarily different from that of revealed
religion, historically, then we must first of all note that the
whole of Western philosophy, from the beginning of Chris-
tianity, moves within the sphere influenced by the Christian
tradition. It has never yet been proved that a philosopher who
sets out to formulate the philosophical idea of God can delibe-
rately renounce all dependence on the Christian tradition;
without himself being aware of the fact, it is at least possible
that some of the heuristic principles which guide his thinking,
may be derived from the Christian Faith, such as, for instance,
the idea of a personal God. It is in this sense, we admit, that
the "Christian philosophy" of the Middle Ages is to be under-
stood. "There is not a Christian reason, but there can be an
exercise of the reason which is Christian" (Gilson, L'esprit de la
philosophie medievale, I, p. 13). The recollection that "the
whole Cartesian system depends upon the idea of an Omni-
potent Deity" {op. cit., p. 14), that Malebranche was as much
Augustinian as Cartesian — one might also add: that Immanuel
Kant had enjoyed the advantage of Protestant instruction in
preparation for Confirmation, that he knew his Bible well, and
that behind his Categorical Imperative lies the narrative of the
giving of the Law on Sinai, makes it appear doubtful whether
any philosophical system of the post-Christian era would find
it possible to disregard the Christian tradition — even when, as,
for instance, in the case of Nietzsche, its influence is mainly
felt as something in opposition to one's own views. For this
reason there are, at least, three groups of philosophies which
must be distinguished from one another:! (i) those which arose
before Christ and outside of Christianity, where there is no
question of any Christian influence at all ; (ii) the philosophy of
the period which was mainly influenced by the Christian Faith ;
(iii) the philosophy of modern times, which is involuntarily and
unconsciously affected by the influence of Christianity.

(i) When we attempt to answer the question: What can
philosophical thought, apart from the influence of the Christian
idea of God, attain theologically? the classical philosophy of
antiquity, down to the time when Christianity arose to rival it,
seems to provide the best sphere for our enquiry. Certainly here,

151

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

too, we would need to examine still more closely the spiritual
influence of Judaism in the last century before Christ, in order
to be able to say what philosophical thought, untouched by the
influence of the Bible, is able to achieve. To this question, the
unprejudiced student of Greek philosophy will reply, first of all,
that the philosophers of this period — for instance, from Thales
to Chrysippus — varied greatly in their ideas about the Divine.
Their views range from the grossest materialism, by way of
pantheism, up to something which comes very near to Theism,
In view of our contention that there is the sharpest contradic-
tion between the Christian and the philosophical Idea of God,
naturally the question of philosophical Theism is particularly
relevant; for not only the materialist, but also the pantheistic
doctrine of God, would from the outset confirm our argument,
while Theism seems to make it, to some extent, questionable.

From this point of view Plato and Aristotle should receive
chief attention. Yet it would be difficult to find anyone prepared
to describe Plato's idea of God as theistic — and to this extent
related to the Christian Idea of God. "For if the Universal alone
is original and absolutely real, then it is impossible to think
that the deity could be conceived otherwise than in impersonal
terms" (Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, II, I, p. 793).
Aristotle, however, seems to offer a more hopeful possibility.
It would then be no accident, but an inner necessity, that the
Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages should have pre-
eminently developed the Idea of God of Aristotle, since from the
outset, in the sense of the formula "gratia non tollit naturam, sed
perficit" , this philosophy seemed most fitting to achieve a
philosophical doctrine of God, controlled by Christian heuristic
principles.

It now appears, however, that the real Aristotle — not the
one of the Thomist interpretation — represents an Idea of God,
which, though it may possess certain theistic features, in any
case is not only very different from the Christian doctrine, but
is also incompatible with it. The God of Aristotle is neither a
"Lord-God" nor a Creator, neither the One who freely elects,
nor the One who stoops down to man. "According to Aristotle,
the Deity stands in lonely self-contemplation outside the
world; for man He is an object of awe and wonder, to know
Him is the highest task of man's intellect; this divinity is the
goal towards which all that is finite aspires, whose perfection
evokes man's love; but just as he cannot expect to receive love
in return, he cannot receive from this divinity any effect at all

152

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I3

that differs from that of nature, and his intellect is the sole
means by which he enters into contact with Him" (Zeller,
op. cit., p. 791). Man's relation to the deity does not even play
any part in the ethical sphere — as, for instance, as a divine law.
On the other hand, the relation between the Christian Idea of
God and that of Stoic popular philosophy seems much closer —
Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius. But, on the one
hand, it is very questionable to what extent we can here speak
of philosophical thought at all ; and on the other hand, we must
not forget that all these thinkers lived at a time when the
Hebrew Idea of God was already at work, like leaven, in con-
temporary thought.

(ii) When we turn to the second period, which is that of
Christian philosophy proper, there are two points to note.
7irst, the Fathers of the Church, and the Scholastic theologians,
with their rudimentary critical sense, read a great deal into the
ancient philosophers which cannot be found there by an un-
prejudiced reader. Secondly, and chiefly, they in particular
have moulded the Christian Idea of God in such a way that, it
is true, it made the synthesis of philosophy and theology far
easier to achieve, but, on the other hand, it injured the Chris-
tian idea of God which was in harmony with revelation. Very
early in Christian theology the tendency to "spiritualize" the
Idea of God became evident, and thus to bring it nearer to the
philosophical idea. This took place, negatively, by eliminating
the supposed "anthropomorphism", and, positively, by using
the idea of the Absolute, "whereby the influence of Platonism
was very evident" (Baur, Vorlesungen iiber die christliche Dog-
mengeschichte, I, p. 405).

Thus Justin Martyr already develops ideas, in connexion
with Plato's words, "God is beyond all existence" [De Rep., VI,
509), which may be in harmony with the Platonist picture of
God, but are certainly not in accordance with the Biblical view
{Dial. c. Tr., Chap. 4). Still more is the thinking of Clement of
Alexandria influenced by the Platonic idea of the Absolute.
Clement also gives himself away by showing how he reaches
this "spiritualized" idea of God: namely, that he does so
8t' dvaXvaecjs, that is, by a process of abstraction, by which the
finite ideas about God are gradually eliminated, until finally all
that remains is the abstract conception of Unity {Strom., V, 11).
Clement does not even wish to admit that God is the One;
rather one should say that He is beyond the One and Unity
{The Pedagogue, I, 8).

153

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

The thought of Origen is similar: therefore "dicimus secundum
veritatem Deum incomprehensihilem esse atque inaestimabilem"
[De Princ, I, i, 5). Through these Fathers of the Church, this
abstract speculative idea of God entered into Christian theology
as a whole ; men did not realize that it was in opposition to the
Christian Idea of God; still less did they perceive the contra-
diction between the speculative method and the faith of
revelation. After the Platonism of the first three centuries, it
was mainly Neo-Platonism, in a modified form in Augustine,
and in a highly developed and non-Christian form in the pseudo-
Dionysius (the Areopagite) which, together with the Aristo-
telianism of the twelfth century, moulded the mediaeval
doctrine of God.

The mediaeval doctrine itself is a very skilful synthesis of
the abstract Idea of God of philosophy, and the personal Idea
of God of the Bible, according to the Christian revelation.
Modern Protestant thinkers have been fully aware of the
disastrous part played by the Idea of the Absolute in this
process of fusion. "To identify the Name and the concept of
the Absolute with God, means, at bottom, nothing less than
idolatry with an adjective", says Fr. H. Jacobi, somewhat too
cleverly (T^T^., Ill, p. 5). Kahler, too, warns his readers against
this idea, which he calls "irreligious" {Wissenschaft der christ-
lichen Lehre, p. 247) ; Cremer does the same {Die Lehre von den
Eigenschaften Gottes, p. 7). But no one seems to have seen quite
clearly what is the basis of this contradiction: the contradiction
between the Person as Subject, who discloses Himself, and the
object of thought which is attained by a process of one's own
thinking.

(iii) In the third period the great contradictions to which
speculative thought leads, if left to itself unchecked, broke out.
In a way similar to that of the period of ancient philosophy,
only in still greater variety and multiplicity, all kinds of
systems arose alongside of one another: materialistic, pan-
theistic, speculative and idealistic, critically idealistic, and
theistic. But whereas in the Middle Ages the tendency pre-
dominated to approximate philosophy and theology as closely
as possible to one another, philosophy — now unhindered by the
Christian Idea of God — now goes its own way, and even if it is
theistic it still does not evince any particular concern about the
question: has its Idea of God any similarity with the Christian
Idea of God? A mistaken apologetic, on the side of Christian
theology, has always tended to lay as little stress as possible

154

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I3

upon the difference between philosophical Theism and the
Christian Idea of God. Men seem to have thought that they
must have the aid of philosophy, hence they had to take the
help which it offered, in its own way. An objective examination
of the facts of the situation — which, so far as I know, has never
yet been accomplished on the part of theology— -would probably
lead to the following conclusions: —

{a) It is a fact that philosophical Theism only prospered (so
to speak) in the shadow of the church towers; that is, that
philosophers only attained the theistic results of their thinking
where the Christian tradition was still comparatively vigorous ;
whereas in other directions the philosophical metaphysic led
far away from Theism to pantheistic Idealism, or to Pantheism
proper, or to various forms of Naturalism, to the very verge of
Materialism. This fact confirms that a priori consideration that
there is an unconscious and unwilled influence of the Christian
Idea of God on the philosophical doctrine of God, which is not
visible in the process of argument, since it is only operative as
a heuristic principle.

{b) In spite of this, the Idea of God of this theistic philosophy
is, as a rule, no less remote from the Christian Idea than is the
Aristotelian idea, with which it has the closest affinity. The
main intellectual motif of philosophical Theism is the greatly
varied and enriched Teleological Proof for the Existence of
God — the inference from the present existence of the world to
a spiritual cause which lies outside the world (especially certain
particular phenomena within human natural experience). Here
we are not concerned with the value of this argument as a
"proof", or with its philosophical relevance. Here we are only
interested in the result, and this result corresponds to the
process by which it is discovered. The God who is known in
this way has no connexion with the Creator Lord of the Bible.
It is directly opposed to this Biblical idea.

If God is what this philosophical Theism says He is, then He
is not the God of the Biblical revelation, the sovereign Lord
and Creator, Holy and Merciful. But if He is the God of revela-
tion, then He is not the God of philosophical Theism. The
supposed usefulness of this philosophical Theism within the
sphere of Christian theology is based merely upon the erroneous
distinction between a "metaphysical" and an "ethical" aspect
of the Christian doctrine of God. Once this error has been per-
ceived, once for all we lose all desire to identify the God of
philosophical Theism with the God of revelation and faith.

155

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

In saying this I do not mean to deny either the value of
philosophy or even the value of the philosophical doctrine of
God. Its significance lies in the fact that it shows, for instance,
that even philosophical thought cannot get away from God, but
that in some way or another — and this indefinite phrase is here
the only proper one to use — it aims at God even when it does
not reach the True God; secondly, in the fact that even in the
sinful blindness of reason, the original revelation is shown to be
still operative. Theism in particular is thus distinghished above
other systems of philosophy by the fact that — even if from
afar — it follows the revelation of God in His works of which
the Apostle says that in it the divine Godhead vooviieva.
Kocdopdrai. It is not the Creator, in the Biblical sense of the
word, who is here perceived; but it is still the closest approxi-
mation to the idea of the Creator of which reason is capable
when left to itself.

156

CHAPTER 14

THE HOLY

From the standpoint of revelation the iirst thing which has to
be said about God is His Sovereignty. But this first point is
intimately connected with a second one — so closely indeed that
we might even ask whether it ought not to have come first : God
is the Holy One. "Hallowed be Thy Name" — it is very signi-
ficant that in the prayer of the Christian Church this clause
comes first. The one concern of the Christian Faith is the Holy
Name, and the "hallowing" of this Name. Although in the New-
Testament the idea of the Holiness of God as a Divine Attribute
is emphasized somewhat less than in the Old Testament, ^ yet it
is ever3Avhere presupposed, and it appears at decisive points,
where the whole revealing and saving work of Christ is gathered
up as the revelation of the Name: "Holy Father, keep them in
Thy Name which Thou hast given me."^ But the whole of the
Old Testament is the revelation of the Holy God. What does
this mean ?

Modern students of religion have come to the unanimous
conclusion that the fundamental act of all religion is the worship
of the Holy.3 "The Holy", as Rudolf Otto's beautiful book has
shown us in an impressive and conclusive manner, is that to
which the religious act is directed. Holiness is the very nature
of the Numinous, of that which is divine, thus of that which
characterizes "the Deity", "the gods", or the "mystenum
tremendum" , towards which man, as a religious being, turns.
Just as from the subjective standpoint the chief word in all
religion is reverence or the fear of God, so from the objective
point of view the Holy is the chief word in all religion, the
word which alone describes the dimension in which all that is
religious is found. In the Biblical revelation, however, we are
concerned not with "the Holy" (as an abstract conception), but
with the Holy One (as personal). Whereas in the various reli-
gions of the world this element, the Holy, may be attached to
all kinds of objects, and "the Holy" is therefore the charac-
teristic common to them all, in the Biblical revelation, at least

' This modification, however, is more apparent than real, when we reflect
that the New Testament lays so much more emphasis upon the Holy Spirit.

' John 17: II.

3 In addition to Rudolf Otto, Das Heilige; cf. G. v. der Leeuw, Phanomeno-
logic der Religion, p. 9.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

at its highest point, ^ "the Holy" is the very Nature of God, the
Lord, who makes His Name known. Yahweh is the "Holy One
of Israel".^ Holiness is that majestas which belongs to God
alone, which can be ascribed to others only in so far as God
Himself "hallows" it, or them, since He makes them vessels
and instruments of His Will.

But in order to understand this original word of the Biblical
revelation in its own proper sense, it is necessary to consider
this word apart from all that has gradually adhered to it, and
altered it, in the course of its long history. Originally, the word
"holy" had no ethical connotation; it did not mean what we
think of when we hear a person described as "holy". Holiness
is the Nature of God, that which distinguishes Him from every-
thing else, the Transcendence of God in His very Nature, 3 as
the "Wholly Other". Hence Holiness is not a quality which
God possesses in common with other beings; on the contrary,
it is that which distinguishes Him clearly and absolutely from
everything else. To be holy is the distinguishing mark peculiar
to God alone : it is that which sets the Being of God apart from
all other forms of being. 4

Even the etymology of the Hebrew word for "holy" {qddosh)
suggests this; it contains the idea of "separation" as a funda-
mental element in the conception. 5 Holiness distinguishes God's
nature from every other form of existence. When Otto, with his
fine insight, perceived that the essential character of the Holy
is the "Wholly Other", in the strict sense of the word, this is
true only of the Biblical conception of Holiness. The gods and
the divinities of the other religions outside the Bible are most
certainly not "wholly other".

In the strict sense of the word the God of the Biblical revela-
tion alone is "the Wholly Other", and the word "holy" is used
precisely to bring this out.* "The" Wholly Other (in the abstract
sense of the word) cannot be "wholly Other" precisely be-
cause it is an "it", because it is not an "I" ; as something neuter
it has no real essential transcendence. Its neutral character
betrays the fact that "it" somehow or other belongs to the
world. Only He who, in the strict sense of the word, is the
Lord of the world, the Creator, can be "wholly Other". Only

' Cf. Theol. Worterbuch, Kittel, I, pp. 89-112. ^ Is. 43: 3; 45: 11.

3 On the distinction between Transcendence in Essence and in Being, see
below, pp. 175 ff.

4 Cf. Theol. Worterbuch, I, p. 93 (on Yahweh's "holiness" in contrast to the
Creation, both natural and historical).

5 Ibid., p. 88. ' Is. 5: 16; 6: 3; Hosea 11: 9.

THE HOLY

the Creator Lord, by His very nature, is different from all other
existence, in such a radical and absolute manner as indeed only
Creator and creature can be different. The Creator has no trace
of "the world" or of "the creaturely" in Himself, and con-
versely, the creature as such has no trace of "non-creatureli-
ness", of "divinity", and therefore of "holiness". Hence the
Being of God as Subject is the logical presupposition of His
Holiness; only He who says, "I, even I, am the Lord, and
beside Me there is no Saviour" — can be "the Holy One of
Israel".

The whole conflict between Yahweh and the Baalim of the
Near East raged round this essential Transcendence of God;
the conflict raged between the God who is the "Wholly Other"
and the nature-gods, who were only hypostasized forces of
Nature. That is why the commandment forbidding the worship
of graven images was of such decisive significance. It empha-
sizes the Transcendence of God, the fact that He cannot be
compared with ^anyone or anything else that is creaturely. ^
Whatever may be the value of the idea of the "analogia entis" ,'^
this, in any case, stands firm, before everything else: that the
Nature of God as the Nature of the Creator^ must be strictly
disinguished from the nature of the creaturely. There is no
transition from the creaturely to the Creator, no intermediate
being, no demi-gods, no abstract holiness, in which various
beings or things could participate. Holiness belongs to God
alone, and this means precisely that which He alone possesses.
We might, therefore, paraphrase the Biblical idea of Holiness
thus: the Divine nature, as it is peculiar to God alone. "I am
God, not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee", 4 that is, "I
am He with whom none can be compared".

This idea, however, is too static and too logical to give the

full meaning of the Biblical word "holy". The Being of God

which His Name makes known to us can never be grasped by

neutral categories of existence. He is Will. Thus the concept of

"the Holy" contains the element of Will, and precisely that Will

which is set upon proclaiming Himself as the "Wholly Other".

The border-line which separates the Nature of God from all

other forms of existence, from that which has been created, is

not only a frontier line, it is a closed frontier, symbolized by the

"mount . . . which burned with fire". 5 God makes this border-

• Is. 40: 25; 57: 15. ' Cf. pp. 175 ff.

3 Is. 41: 20; 45: II. 4 Hosea 11: 9.

5 In his vision of the Holy "Isaiah feels the deadly contrast to his own
nature". {Theol. Worterbuch, p. 93.)

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

line; He actively maintains it, and defends it against every
infringement on the part of the arrogant creature. God wills to
be the Only One who is what He is. He "will not give His
honour to another ".^ Hence the idea of "Holiness" is closely
connected with that idea of "jealousy" which modern man
finds so repellent.

"I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God."^ This idea, if
rightly understood, not only is not offensive in itself, but for
the right idea of God it is central. Certainly it is a parable taken
from the sphere of marriage. As the married person rightly
guards the exclusiveness of the marriage relation, and will not
permit any third person to enter into this relation, which can
only be right if maintained between two persons, so God guards
the uniqueness of His Divine Being. 3

He rejects every attack on His sole rights, on that which
belongs to Him alone. The Holiness of God is therefore not only
an absolute difference of nature, but it is an active self-differ-
entiation, the willed energy with which God asserts and main-
tains the fact that He is Wholly Other against all else. The
absoluteness of this difference becomes the absoluteness of His
holy will, which is supreme and unique.

Thus the Divine Holiness is inseparably connected with that
character of absolute intolerance which distinguishes the
Biblical Idea of God, and differentiates it from all other ideas
of God. 4 God will not tolerate the recognition of any other; He
opposes those who do not admit His Uniqueness, the fact that
He alone is God, and thus His true Nature as God. On the
other hand. He emphasizes positively His Being as God, the
truth that He alone is the True God. The positive and negative
energy of this emphasis is brought out in two equally charac-
teristic words which are of equal value for the Christian idea of
God: the Glory of God, and His Wrath. Both ideas have been
rendered suspect by a rationalism which does not understand
the thought of the Bible; the objection to both ideas is that
they .savour of "primitive anthropomorphic conceptions", and
thus ascribe human passions to God.

In the thought of the Bible — and indeed in all genuine
Christian thought — the idea of the "Glory of God" is absolutely
fundamental. God wills to be recognized as God. To the Zeus of
Plato it is a matter of indifference whether man recognizes

' Isa. 42: 8; 48: II. 2 Exod. 20: 5.

3 The IBook of Hosea brings this out particularly clearly and impressively.

4 Cf. below, pp. 178 ff.

160

THE HOLY

him or not. Unperturbed, he moves on his way in heaven with-
out turning round to see what is happening either behind him or
beneath him.' The Living God who makes His Name known to
us is not indifferent. He wills "that the whole earth be filled
with His Glory". 2 He wills that all men should know and
confess His Name. 3 He is not a static Being, but the God of
revelation, who indeed reveals Himself precisely because He
wills that His Name should be made known, in order that He
may be glorified, in order that His will should be done. The
Holy Name and the Glory of God are inseparable. As the God
of revelation He is the God who cares absolutely, to whom it
is not a matter of indifference whether the creature does His
will, or his own will, whether falsehood or His Truth prevail in
the world of men, whether people worship other gods beside
Him, or whether they render obedience to other lords. It con-
cerns Him — "it matters" to Him. And indeed it matters to
Him that He should be recognized as the Holy One, as the One
who is Wholly Other. The Glory of God is the unity of God's
sovereignty and His revelation, the revealed visible "glory",
the majesty of God as it is seen by His creature, recognized as
that which shines forth upon the creature. The revelation of
the Holy God has attained its end where the "Glory of the
Lord" is "mirrored" in the hearts of believers. 4 This is the
meaning of the Biblical idea of the Glory of God.

This leads us inevitably to the second truth: that of His
Wrath. It is Holy Wrath, the wrath of the Holy One about the
failure to stress the Holy, about man's rebellion against God's
holy will, which is the truth. But this wrath is not an emotion
which resembles anything we know in human experience ; it is
the inevitable necessary reaction of the will of God to all that
opposes Him. God takes the fact that He is God "seriously" —
and this is the only thing that is wholly serious, and from which
all that is really serious is derived. "God is not mocked. "5
Both the negative and the positive aspects of the divine energy
of will are inseparable from the divine Being of God. What kind
of God would He be if He did not care whether people took
Him seriously or not? Since God takes Himself absolutely
seriously. He gives seriousness to life. If God did not take Him-
self seriously, what else could be taken seriously?

This "seriousness" works itself out negatively as resistance
provoked by resistance, and indeed as resistance which ulti-

' FlSito, Phaedrus. * Ps. 72: 19.

3 Phil. 2: 10 ff. 4 2 Cor. 3: 18. 5 Gal. 6: 7.

161

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

mately is the rock against which all other resistance founders. ^
The man who fights against God will finally break down at this
point. The resistance of the creature has no possibility of
asserting itself finally against the will of the Creator. The will
of God crushes the will which opposes Him; if the rebel does
not separate himself from the will which is opposed to God, he
himself will be annihilated. This is the Divine Wrath, the
working out of the Divine Glory upon those who refuse to give
Him glory ; the working out of the Holiness of God against him
who irreverently, godlessly, does not acknowledge Him. To
speak of all this as "anthropomorphic ideas", of all the refer-
ences to the wrath of God in the Scriptures as "merely the
crass anthropopathic relics of an uncultured age, which describes
the divine righteousness in terms of the human emotions"
{Wegscheider), only betrays the fact that the writer does not
know the God of revelation, the God who makes His Name known
to us, and thus that the very idea of the Holy God and of the
Lord God is unpleasing to him, and that, at the most, he only
recognizes a God who does not claim him by His will. The idea
of the Divine Wrath cannot be severed from that of the Holi-
ness of God.

From all that has just been said it is plain that in the concept
of the Holiness of God there is a twofold movement of the
Divine Will — at first sight a contradictory movement, namely,
a movement of withdrawal and exclusion, and a movement of
expansion and inclusion.

The movement of exclusion refers to the element of differ-
entiation as such. God — alone — is God, the creature is — only —
a creature. Hence the Holiness of God evokes from man an
incomparable sense of distance from Him. God in His Nature is
inaccessible. He dwells "in light unapproachable ".^ The
creature which becomes aware of the Holiness of God recognizes
that he himself is very "far off" from Him. This is that feeling
which Otto describes as "creaturely feeling", which is expressed
by reverent homage. Before God's majesty man sees himself as
nothing: "Woe is me! for I am undone . . . for mine eyes have
seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.3 "Behold now, I have taken
iipon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and
ashes. "4 Man is not equal to God: he is indeed a creature, not
the Creator; he is a dependent, not an independent, person-

' This is not only the teaching of the Old Testament, but of the New,
especially in the doctrine of the Last Things.

' I Tim. 6: 16. 3 Is. 6: 5. 4 Gen. 18: 27.

162

THE HOLY

ality. Therefore one cannot stand on a level with God and have
fellowship with Him as if He were just one of ourselves. We
must bow the knee before Him.^ Reverence is the exact opposite
of that attitude which Hebbel expresses thus:

To God the Lord it is a triumph
If we do not faint before Him,
If we stand upon our feet
In glorious confidence,
Instead of falling on our faces
In the dust. . . .

The creature should bow the knee in reverence before the Holy
God. This humble recognition of the infinite distance between
God and man is the "fear of the Lord": that fear of the Lord
which is the "beginning of all wisdom". ^ This is the expression
of the feeling that we are wholly dependent upon God, and that
He is in no way dependent upon us.

But this movement of exclusion, of keeping human beings at
a distance, is inseparable from a second opposite movement,
which yet at the same time completes the other. God wills that
His Name shall be glorified, that He shall be seen to be the
Holy in His Otherness. Thus He wills that "the whole earth be
filled with His glory ".3 It is precisely unlimited recognition
that He wills, and this gloria Dei is His aim. He, the God of
revelation, wills to be known and recognized — that is the
meaning of revelation. But when He is seen to be what He is,
then the glory of His Light illuminates the life of His creature.
The revelation which discloses the distance between the Being
of God and all other existence, also, at the .same time, by this
manifestation, removes the gulf between man and God. All
revelation is self-communication, and self-communication is
inclusion, attraction to Himself, "drawing near", a nearness
which wills communion, which, however, where it meets with
opposition may turn into a "consuming fire". But where the
call — "soli Deo gloria" — resounds, in a true confession, in
sincere reverence, there is a positive nearness of God; indeed,
there is communion with God: there the creature has become
"full" of God. This is the ultimate dialectic which, as we already
saw at the beginning, lies in the revelation of the Name of God.
It is the dialectic of Holiness and Love. As the Holy One, God

' In the New Testament the attitude of kneeling as an expression of rever-
ence before the Holy Majesty of God is taken for granted: Phil. 2: 10; Eph. 3:
14; Rom. 14: II. 2 Prov. 1:7. 3 Ps. 72: 19.

163

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

wills to be separate from all creatures ; as the Holy One He also
wills that all creation should be filled with His glory, and thus
should have a share in that quality which is His alone. Thus
the Holiness of God is the basis of the self-communication
which is fulfilled in love.^

This second, inclusive, movement, therefore, is also the
source of that which we may call "transitive holiness". God
alone is Holy; but since He proclaims His Holiness in His
creation, and declares that it belongs to Him, He "hallows" it.
Then it is not only God who is Holy, but those upon whom He
has laid His claim, and who are "separated" unto Him. In this
"secondary" sense, everything that God sets apart as His
property and for His service is holy. Hence the "People of
God" — Israel, in so far as He has chosen it to be the people to
whom He reveals Himself, the people He claims as His "own"
— is "holy". 2 The Church is Holy, indeed to use the language
of the New Testament she consists entirely of "saints" (ayiot),3
that is, of those whom God has called unto Himself out of the
world to be "His own". Hence the doctrine of Election, one of
the main themes of the Old and the New Testament, is based
upon the Holiness of God. 4

This idea of being separated to be God's peculiar possession
is unintelligible to rational thought. How can any particular
individual be "separated" unto God as His special property, since
as Creator everything belongs to Him? How can there be any-
thing, which, from the very beginning, does not^ as a matter of
course, belong to God? Very true, but not all whom God has
created acknowledge Him, the Holy One; not all are de facto
what they are de jure — the property of God. Rather, we might
say that there are two ways of belonging to God : qualified and
unqualified, as property de jure and de facto. All nations belong
to God, for He has created them all. But at first Israel alone
was "His people", because He had chosen this people from
among all nations, in order that He might, in a special way, set
His seal upon it as His own property, because to this people He
has made known His Holiness, since it is to it that He has
revealed Himself. All human beings belong to God; but "His
own", in the qualified sense of the word, are only those who
"receive" Him in His revelation. 5

' The first to perceive the oneness of the Holiness and the Love of God was
Hosea. The testimony to this unity comes out most impressively in the Second
Isaiah; the Holy is, as such, the Saviour. (Is. 41 : 14; 43: 3; 47: 4.)

' Ps. 34: 10; 89: 6. 3 Cf. I Cor. i: 2; I Pet. 2: q.

< The "holy" are the "elect" (Col. 3: 12). 5 John i : 12; 10: 14.

164

THE HOLY

Once more we see the close connexion between God's Nature
and His revelation. Because He is, and wills to be, the Holy
One, He reveals Himself, He is to be known as the Holy, and
the creature to whom He reveals Himself becomes His hallowed
property, a creature upon whom the Creator has specially laid
His Hand, thus enabling him to know God as the Holy One,
and himself as God's property. In His revelation the otherwise
hidden being of God is expressed. In what sense God is the Holy
One, only comes out where His Holiness manifests itself as
electing revelation and revealing election. Thus the position is
not that first of all God is "something", and then, later on,
reveals what He is; rather, we may say that it is God's very
nature to want to reveal Himself, since it springs from His
Holiness. God's Holiness is the will to possess His creatures,
therefore it is the will to reveal Himself. Revelation is not
something which is added to His Nature, it is part of His very
Nature. God is the God of revelation ; He is the One who seeks
man, the God who wants to have man for Himself, the God
whose very nature it is to be sovereign Will. It is part of the
very Nature of God as the Holy One that He is concerned to be
known by His creatures, and to possess them in a qualified
sense as His own possession, that is, as creatures who recognize
Him as their Lord. The Nature of God is not rightly described
if it is not described as Will directed towards the sovereignty
of God. As One who creates a "people for His own possession"
God is the Holy One.' Here we merely suggest a thought which
we shall be developing in its whole breadth and depth later on,
namely : that it is of the very Nature of God, of the True God,
of the God who manifests His Name, to care for the creature
whom He has created to stand "over against" Him. God does
not ignore the will of His creature; He cares intensely for His
creature. He wills, infinitely seriously, to be known by this
creature as that which He is. In infinitely divine passion He is
Will turned towards man : He is the dedvOpoj-rros deos.

Only now can we understand the connexion with the moral
idea of the Holy. As in the religions outside the world of the
Bible, so also in the earlier stages of the witness of the Old
Testament, the idea of Holiness is non-ethical, if not a-moral.
The Numinous, the "mysterium tremendum" , has at first
nothing to do with the ethical element. God does not only
"hallow" persons, but also animals, places, times, vessels. ^ But
by the time of the Prophets this ethically neutral idea of Holi-

• John 17: 4. I Cf. Theol. Worterbuch, I, pp. 88 ff.

165

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

ness disappears; in the New Testament it has completely
vanished. The Holy One is at the same time the Moral, and the
Moral has become entirely the Holy. "The Holy God proves
that He is holy through righteousness. "^ It is not, however, a
synthesis which has been achieved, ^ but what has happened is
this : the deepest nature of the Holy, and the deepest nature of
the Moral, have here become evident in their original and
natural unity. For in the most profound sense of the word,
what is the so-called "Moral" element? It simply means to be
determined by the will of God — to belong to God. Behind the
Moral Law, behind the Categorical Imperative, behind the
commandments of God, there stands in the last resort simply
this. "You belong wholly and entirely to God." Hence, both in
the ethical, and in the religious sense, the person who knows
he wholly belongs to God is "holy".

There is no such thing as "the Moral" in itself — as the
"autonomous" ethic says there is — that is, something which is
"Moral" in and for itself, that which is "morally Good", under-
stood as independent of the Will of God. That which is morally
"good" is identical with that which is determined by the will of
God. The only "good" will is one that wills — utterly and en-
tirely— only what God wills, and one which wills this — simply
and utterly — because God wills it. The fact that the content of
this Good is the will to do good to one's fellow-man, to help
him to further everything which will contribute to the well-
being of man and to remove all that is evil, thus that it wills love
of our neighbour, consideration for others, justice, etc. — all this,
on the other hand, is not something separate and secondary.
For all this is rooted in, and derived from, the will of God.

The illusion of a supposedly "independent" morality or ethic
is due to the fact that our natural processes of knowing begin
first of all with this relation to the well-being of others, and the
fact that this is rooted in the will of God is only regarded as a
sanction, afterwards applied, for this social imperative which
already exists. Actually, the very opposite is the case. To will the
good of our neighbour is a Moral Imperative because the God
to whom we belong wills this good of our neighbour. The will is
good not because it wills the good of our neighbour, but purely
and simply because, and in so far as, it wills the good of our neigh-
bour as that which God wills. The truly good will is the holy will,
that is, the will which is wholly controlled by the will of God.

Hence the Moral is an integral element in the Holy. What we

' Is. 5: 16. J Of. Otto, Das Heilige, pp. 21 and 82.

166

THE HOLY

call the Moral is only one side of "belonging" to God, the side
which is turned towards man. But to belong to God is the
result of the claim that the Holy God lays upon us as our
Creator. So long as this Holy Will of God is not rightly known,
a contradiction between the content of the Moral Law — the
law which commands us to seek the good of our neighbour —
and the will of God can exist; thus religious obedience and
moral obedience may come mto conflict with one another, and
therefore there can be non-ethical religion and non-religious
morality. But the morality which is severed from the will of
God always tends to become superficial, as, on the other hand
— apart from revelation — there is always a tendency towards
ethical indifference. ^

But wherever the will of God is known as the will of the
Holy, as the will of the Lord and Creator who is bent upon
asserting His rights over us, there is no possibility of a conflict
between the religious and the moral elements. What God wills
— the sovereignty of God — is the foundation of all true morality ;
conversely, all morality which is directed towards the good of
our neighbour has its basis and its deepest motive in obedience
to the Will of God. Thus the "saints", in the sense of those who
are designated as such because they are the possession of God,
become "saints" in the sense that they are those who are com-
pletely obedient to the will of God, and whose will is identical
with the will of God. In the Christian revelation alone the
Divine and the Human are one.

Now, however, how can we combine the statement of the
Holiness of God, which expresses and works itself out as con-
suming wrath, with the other statement — that His Holiness is
one with His love ? To put it quite simply : what is the relation
between the truth — taught in the Bible — of the Love of God
and the equally Scriptural truth of the Divine wrath? It is
obvious that the conception of the Divine Wrath not only
causes great embarrassment to a rationalist of the Enlighten-
ment school, or to a theologian like Schleiermacher, with his
pantheistic tendencies, but it is also true of those theologians
who are greatly concerned to keep close to the teaching of
Scripture in their theological work.^ Where they are dealing

» Thus, on the one hand, there is the dull bourgeois morality of utility, and
on the other hand, that a-moral "Numinous" which we perceive, e.g. in the
cult of Shiva.

^ That even Karl Barth, in his present doctrine, finds himself in this quan-
dary, comes out most plainly in his present conception of Predestination; cf.
below, pp. 346 ff.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

with Judgment and the Wrath of God they turn away from the
Bible. But it is precisely here that we stand at the decisive
point in the whole Christian doctrine of God; hence here we
need to give very careful consideration to the whole subject,
and especially to pay great attention — in a spirit of reverent
obedience — to all that the Bible has to say.

No modern theologian, perhaps no theologian at any period
in the history of the Church, has grasped so profoundly the
contradictory ideas of the wrath and the love of God as Luther ;
this is probably due to the fact that no other theologian has
had such a profound experience of the annihilating Holiness of
God as he. All the lines of the Reformation understanding of
faith converge at this point, which is designated in the teaching
of Luther by the contradictory pair of ideas, Deus absconditus,
Deus revelatus, the hidden and the revealed God. We cannot, I
suppose, do a greater service to the clarification of the actual
problem than by a short summary of Luther's ideas upon this
cardinal question in theology. Such a survey is necessary also,
because, so far as I can see, all previous expositions^ — with the
single exception of Theodosius Harnack^ — have not been able
to reach any real clarification at this point.

The understanding of the doctrine of Luther has been made
more difficult by two facts : firstly, that in his younger days he
taught the doctrine of a double predestination which later he
gave up; secondly, that he speaks of the "hidden God" in two
different senses. Why he does so, and what he means in both
instances by the formula "the Hidden God", can be made clear
quite simply and plainly if we begin at the right point.

We must begin with the statement that the true, valid know-
ledge of God can only be gained in His revelation, in Jesus
Christ. Through all the phases of Luther's theological develop-
ment, and in all the aspects of the development of his teaching,
that is the one constant and clear element. Why, alongside of
this, there is yet a certain valuation, a conditional place given
to the natural knowledge of God in Luther's thought, 3 will
become clear to us in a moment. In Jesus Christ alone, how-
ever, God makes Himself known as He really is. In Him God
shows Himself to us as "an abyss of eternal love". 4 The revela-
tion and the communication of this love, the work of free grace

' Cf. Kattenbusch, Deus absconditus bei Luther {Festgabe fUr J. Kaftan),
1920; Blanke, Der verborgene Gott bei Luther, 1928; Schlink, Die Verborgenheit
Gottes, des Schopfers, nach lutherischer Lehre (in the Festschrift fUr Karl Barth),
1936. * Luther's Theologie, I, New ed. 1927.

3 Cf. e.g. W.A., 44, 591 ff.; 667 ff. 4 Ibid., 36, 426.

168

THE HOLY

is "God's proper work", His opus proprium.^ For through this,
His reconciUng, redeeming work, His work in Christ, God
creates faith, and through faith He receives His glory. Thus, if
it is the will of God to receive His glory. His Holiness, then
both His Holy and Loving Will are fulfilled in faith. "Faith
gives glory to God."^ Here, then, the Holiness and the Love of
God are one.

But this faith presupposes that the sinful man confesses and
repents of his sin. This, however, only occurs where he places
himself under the judgment of God. Before God can give love,
life and grace, He must first of all kill the old Adam. "Si Deus
vivificat, facit illud occidendo." "These, then, are two works of
God, much praised by the Scriptures, that He kills and makes
alive, wounds and heals, destroys and helps. . . ."3 Men do not
like to admit that they are sinners, "they do not want to have
their old Adam killed, for this reason they do not attain to the
proper work of God, which is justification, or the Resurrection
of Christ". 4 Thus., if God is to do "His own" work. He must do
a "strange work", an opus alienum. "Nevertheless" — so Luther
puts the words into the mouth of God — "this is not My Own
work, but it is a strange work". 5 It is a "strange work" because
it does not spring from the essential will of God, but because it
is forced upon Him by the sinful resistance of men, "quod
contra suam naturam {Deus) suscipit, cogente malitia homi-
num" .^ Sin, the resistance of man, is the reason why God must
do this "strange work", why He must show Himself and ex-
press Himself as the wrathful God. Sin obliges Him "to turn
his back on man", 7 to do His Work "on the left hand",^ instead
of His work of grace "on the right hand". Indeed, the Cross of
Jesus Christ itself, as a death of this kind, as a result of the
wrath of God, when we look at this aspect of the "slaying" of
the Son of God, is a "strange work" of God, 9 while on the other
hand, where it attains its end, in the repentance and faith of
the sinner, it is in very deed the most characteristic work of the
Grace of God.

This change, however, does not always take place. A man
may not be willing to repent ; he may not want to admit that
he is a sinner; hence he rejects the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Upon such a man there "abides" "the wrath of God"io as a
terrible reality." Thus the wrath of God, even if it does not

' W.A., 5, 63 ff. 2 Ibid., 40, I, 360. 3 Ibid., 7, 658.

4 Ibid., I, 112. 5 Ibid., 25, 190. * /fczif., 42, 356.

7 Ibid., 46, 672. 8 Ibid., 46, 669. 9 Ibid., I, 112.

>o John 3: 36. " Luther, ibid., 40, II, 342; 378.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

correspond with God's "proper" will, is nevertheless a divine
reality. It is not that the doctrine of the wrath of God is an
error, or a human misunderstanding. The wrath of God is some-
thing terrible; indeed, it is an infinite reality, "as great as God
Himself", "eternally immeasurable, infinite, irrevocable — an
incomprehensible infinitum" .^ Because God takes Himself, His
Love, infinitely seriously, and in so doing also takes man
infinitely seriously. He cannot do otherwise than be angry,
although "really" He is only Love. His wrath is simply the
result of the infinitely serious love of God.^ Because it is true
that Jesus Christ alone is the Light and the Life, it cannot be
otherwise than that outside of Christ there is darkness, death,
destruction. 3 "Therefore there is at all times enmity between
man and God, and they cannot be friends and agree with one
another; and where the two persons come into conflict with one
another, there must man be broken to pieces, for he cannot
stand against God. "4 Faith, however, is that turning-point
where man submits to the Divine judgment, abandons his
resistance, and flees from the God of wrath to the God of Grace,
where men "flee to God from God", where "they break through
His wrath" and call upon Him, "appealing from His Throne as
Judge to the Throne of Grace". 5

Where this does not occur, where this has not yet taken
place, that is, in the whole sphere of the "natural man", and
therefore also in the whole sphere of the natural knowledge of
God, and of the natural course of the world, God is the Wrath-
ful One, there man stands under the wrath of God. In this sphere,
in this knowledge of God, therefore, man has to do with the
Deus absconditus. Hence, the Deus absconditus is above all the
God of natural, philosophical speculation about God, of the
philosophical knowledge of God.^ He who wants to know God
thus, does the opposite of that which alone leads to the know-
ledge of the True God; he begins with the sublime knowledge,
with the hidden majesty, with God as He is "in Himself",
because — as the God of speculation — He is not the God of
revelation, the God who is "for us". 7 Luther calls this specula-
tive doctrine of God "clambering up to the Divine Majesty". In
so doing, God becomes an "objectum, namely, the God who is
not revealed". 8 There are only these two possibilities: either
the natural knowledge (of God) with its "objectum", the Deus

' Luther, W.A., 40, II, 3. ' Ibid., 19, 167 ff.

3 Ibid., 18, 779. -» E.A., 13, 313.

5 Ibid., 5, 204; 19, 229; 36, 366 ff. '' Ibid., 44, 591 ff.

7 Ibid., 40, II, 315 ff.; 37. 43. * Ibid., 43, 458 ff.

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THE HOLY

ahsconditus ,^ or the knowledge of God given in revelation. But
the Deus ahsconditus and the way to Him, as the God of wrath,
as the naked Divine Majesty, is a consuming Fire.^ Hence the
warning is given: "scrutator majestatts opprimiiur a gloria" , and
Luther adds: "ego expertus scio".3 It is — and this is only
another equivalent for the Deus ahsconditus — the Deus ahso-
lutus, not the God who has revealed Himself to us, but the
God who, in Himself, is mystery. Of Him it is true: "Deum
absolutum debent omnes fugere, quia humana natura et Deus ahso-
lutus sunt inter se infestissimi inimici nee potest fieri quin a tanta
majestate humana infirmitas opprimatur."

The natural knowledge of God leads to no other end than
this. As it is the natural knowledge of the reason, so also is it
the knowledge of the law. The heathen indeed have the know-
ledge of the law, the reason has "cognitionem legalem",'^ the
knowledge of that righteousness of God which only gives and
demands law. Therefore it is a truth whose final result is con-
demnation, the annihilating judgment of God on sinful man. 5
The wrath of God and this law — that Nomos of the Epistles to
the Galatians and the Romans — belong together. Finally, it is
an uncertain knowledge, ^ for as He is in Himself, in His naked
majesty, God cannot be known. 7 He can only be known with
certainty in His revelation, where His terrible Majesty is
graciously veiled, where He makes Himself finite and knowable
for our sakes.8

We have now reached the point at which the idea of the
"Hidden God" acquires a second meaning, which is diametri-
cally opposed to the first one. 9 The revelation of God, from the
standpoint of that absolute, non-revealed "majestas" , is a
gracious veiling of that devastating Majesty. In this connexion
we must understand the new pair of opposites, Deus nudus,
Deus velatus. The Deus nudus is that naked Majesty, the sight
of whom is intolerable for the sinful creature, "God merely and
apart from Christ". 'o Over against this God the sinner" is with-
out protection or shade in the blazing sun".ii It is only the
gracious veiling of this terrible Majesty in the human Person of
the Redeemer "which protects us from the heat, which comes
from the contemplation of the Divine Majesty; this shade gives

' E.A., 43, 458 if. * Ibid., 25, 106. 3 Ibid., 40, i, 78.

♦ Ihid., 46, 671. 5 Ibid., 40, I, 75 ff. « Ibid., 40, II, 386 ff.

1 Ibid., 42, 294. 8 Ibid., 42, 294 ff.

9 Blanke, in his otherwise excellent work, does not discuss this twofold use
of the formula "Hidden God".

" Luther, E.A., 42, 494 ff. " Ibid., 25, 106.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

US coolness, so that the thoughts of wrath pass away".^ God has
graciously descended to our level "ad captum infirmitatis" ; He
deals with us "per aliquid volucrum" ,'^ He has so veiled Himself
— "velatum tali persona . . . quae nobis attemperata est" .3 Thus
it is precisely the gracious revealed God who is "veiled", be-
cause, and in so far as, He becomes known to us, not as the
unveiled naked Majesty, but only in this veiled form as Love.
Hence "he who does not wish to fall on this stone and be broken
to pieces, let him beware, and not deal with God 'nakedly'
apart from His Word and His Promise. For human nature and
God in His naked Majesty {Deus ahsolutus) cannot get on with
one another, nor can they be compared. For it is impossible
that human weakness should grasp and be able to bear the
High Majesty of God". 4 This Deus velafus is also the Deus
revelatus. The form of the velatio is precisely the possibility of
the revelatio. This concealing is therefore not a real hiding of
God's Face, but it is indeed the real unveiling. Therefore,
Luther does not speak in this connexion of the Deus absconditus.
The Deus absconditus is the really Hidden God, He who is really
not to be known in His true Being, the Deus absolutus, the God
of wrath. He is the God, as we have Him outside of Christ,
hence He is also the God of the Law, "which is intolerable for
the conscience". 5

In the conception of the Deus nudus or absolutus Luther
gathers up several ideas, which must first of all be disentangled
and distinguished from one another; but they all have this
common element: they all refer to God apart from Christ.
First, there is the idea of the Irrational, the Numinous, before
which man sinks down in his nothingness, which awakens in
him absolute fear, that "creaturely feeling" in the presence of
the Holy. Secondly, there is the Absolute, which is the "objec-
tum" of speculative thought, that empty absoluteness in which
all definitions disappear, and alongside of which an independent
creature and its freedom has no room, thus in which the human
person is reduced to absolute nothingness. Thirdly, there is the
God of the Law with its demands, who only demands righteous-
ness, but who does not give, whose verdict therefore crushes
sinful man.

However far, at first sight, these three ideas differ from one
another, and correspond to quite different experiences, they are
at the same time at one in the fact that they represent the

' E.A., 25, 107. 2 Ibid., 72, 294. 3 Ibid., 40, II, 329 ff.

4 Ibid., 40, II, 329 ff. 5 Ibid., 40, I, 75.

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THE HOLY

"God outside of Christ", the God whom we encounter in the
natural sphere. They are also one in the fact that in their effect
upon us they are all negative, destructive. Hence they corre-
spond to the wrath of God, under which man stands, so long as
he has not entered into the sphere of grace of Jesus Christ
through revelation and faith. This, then, is certainly God, it is
not a mere imagination; but it is God as He is, and remains,
outside of Jesus Christ.

Hence — and here we come to the conclusion of this line of
thought — it is God as He meets us in Nature and in the natural
course of the world. ^ God is thus — in the world, outside of
Christ. He who wishes to imderstand God from the point of
view of the world cannot help seeing Him thus. God meets sin-
ful man in the world as the wrathful God, as the Majesty which
condemns and destroys. All that we know naturally in the
world, in the course of this world, in the visible divine govern-
ance of the world, is the God of wrath; thus the course of this
world, as we see it naturally, apart from Jesus Christ, is there-
fore also a "strange work" of God, and this "strange work" of
God reaches its culminating point in the Cross of the Son.^
Precisely in this highest manifestation of the wrathful God,
however, is it possible — and here alone — for faith to "break
through wrath", and to see in that which is "strange" the work
of God, which is most peculiarly His own, reconciliation
through Jesus Christ, in which the inmost being of God is
disclosed as the abyss of Love.

In his earlier days, until 1525, Luther believed that one
ought to see a double decree of God in the reality of the wrath
of God which shows itself most manifestly in judgment on the
godless, just as at that time he thought that he had to ascribe
completely objective truth to the idea of naked majesty, of the
"potestas absoluta". He did not yet see clearly that the inmost
Being of God, that which He is in Himself, must be identical
with that which He is for us.

But even then he was certain that God was not to be re-
garded in His double predestination, but solely and simply in
Jesus Christ and His Grace. Thus there was still a great gulf
between his objective understanding of the Supreme Truth, and
his religious and pragmatic understanding of the same Truth.

Later on, Luther abandoned this dualism without ever being
quite clear about the break he had made. This comes out in the
fact that he now ascribes the will of God expressed in wrath

" E.A.,j\2, 295 ff. ^ See above on p. 169.

^73

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

solely to the guilt, the malitia of man, and that in the Love of
Christ, in the Holiness which is identical with it, the true
Nature and Mystery of God is known. "Just as one must say of
a pious Prince and Lord : the Prince is purely love and kindness
to everyone . . . none the less he must make use of the sword,
the pike, the halberd, and he must have executioners and jailers
in his service, in order that he may act with vigour in his
territory, and crush those who try to resist his rule and his
peaceful government, or to do harm to his people. But in his
hall and in his castle there is nothing but mercy and love. . . .
Thus, too, there is no wrath and harshness in God, and His
Heart and His Thoughts are full of love and nothing else."^
Through faith in Jesus Christ and only through Him do we
know "what is going on within the highest Majesty and most
secret Being. . . ." ,^ "what God is in Himself. . . ."3

But even this truth of faith is only perceived where the
truth is taken seriously, that outside of Jesus Christ, outside of
faith, outside the refuge of His reconciliation, God is really the
God of Holy wrath. That is why Luther contests the "Pelagian"
spirit "which imagines something for itself, does not regard the
wrath of God, constructs for itself such a God who is merciful,
as now the world is accustomed to do".

' E.A., 36, 427 ff. ' Ibid., 17, II, 313. 3 Ibid., 49, 328.

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APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 14

(l) TRANSCENDENCE OF ESSENCE AND OF BEING, AND THE

"analogia ENTIS"
In modern theological discussions there has been a great deal
of unnecessary controversy about the idea of Divine Tran-
scendence ; this is due to the fact that the ideas of transcendence
of essence and transcendence of being have not been clearly
distinguished from one another. Transcendence of essence
means that God is God alone, and that His "Godhood" is
absolutely and irrevocably different from all other forms of
being, as the essence of the Creator differs from the essence of
the creature; thus God and the world must be kept absolutely
distinct from one another. Transcendence of Being, understood
in the absolute sense, would mean that God is not immanent in
the world in any sense at all, but that He is quite separate from
the world. While the former idea is necessarily connected with
the Biblical idea of God, the latter represents the statement of
an extreme Deism. The Biblical statement about the relation
of God to the world which He has created occupies a middle
position between a Deistic doctrine of Transcendence and a
Pantheistic doctrine of Immanence.

Hence in modern times (K. H. Krause, Lotze, etc.) some
have used the phrase "Pan-entheism" and have supported this
term by appealing to Acts 17 : 28 : "For in Him we live and move
and have our being". But this formula does not adequately
express the Biblical idea, because it is too static, and not
sufficiently dynamic. God's presence in the world, and His
nearness to man, are not correctly described by the formula
"being-in", because God's nature is " actuositas" , "being-in-
action". In the second volume of Dogmatics this subject will be
treated more fully.

With the assertion that God is the Wholly Other, the problem
is stated of the relation of likeness or unlikeness between God
and His creation. The assertion of a likeness between the
creature and the Creator has led in Catholic theology to the
formulation of the doctrine of the "analogia eniis", which Karl
Barth has called an invention of Anti-Christ and against which
he has inveighed with controversial vehemence {K.D. I, i, 3rd
ed. Preface, p. viii). Now, in so far as the Catholic doctrine of
the "analogia entis" is connected with Neo-Platonist ontology,
and with the Natural Theology which is based thereon, Barth's

175

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

attack would command our complete assent. There is, however,
not only a Neo-Platonist, but also a genuinely Biblical doctrine
of a likeness between the creature and the Creator, namely,
the doctrine that God, the Creator, has stamped the imprint
of His nature upon His creation. But what this "likeness"
means cannot be understood from the standpoint of Natural
Theology, but only — rightly — from within the historical
revelation. Revelation is the basis of the knowledge of the right
doctrine of "likeness"; but within this knowledge based on
revelation we now perceive that this "likeness" imparted by the
Creator to the creature determines the being of creatures, so
that they are thus, whether it is recognized or not, whether it
is rightly understood or wrongly interpreted. Hence the doc-
trine of the "analogia entis" — in the Biblical sense — cannot be
contrasted with an "analogia fidei" . Faith is certainly the
presupposition of right knowledge; but the analogy itself,
since, and through, the Creation, is in the creatures them-
selves.^

For us, however, this raises the question: How can we
reconcile this statement of a "likeness" between the Creator
and His creation with the statement that God is the Wholly
Other ? To this we may give the following answer :

1. As the One who alone is Creator, God stands "over
against" His creation, because it does not participate in His
Being as Creator — the "Wholly Other". The fact that God is
the Wholly Other refers to that which distinguishes Him as
Creator from the creature. He alone is Lord, He alone is the
Source of all life ; He alone is the Giver of every good and perfect
gift. He alone is "a se, non ah alio" . Thus there is no "way"
between the creaturely and the divine ; between both there lies
the absolute gulf : that outside of God there is only that which
has been created, outside Him who is "a se", only that which is
"ab alio"; thus outside the One who is entirely independent,
there is only dependent being, the creature. This difference is
greater than all other differences of any kind; this is the
absolute transcendence of essence of Him who alone is God.

2. Now, however, God has created a being outside Himself,
a being who stands "over against" Him: a created, creaturely
being, creatures, and creaturely relations. In that He creates

• The reader of the latest volume of Earth's Dogmatik (III, i) will be
pleasantly surprised to note that Karl Barth himself now speaks of an "ana-
logia relationis" , which constitutes that "imago Dei" which has not been affected
by the Fall (pp. 224 ff.).

176

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 14

them at the same time He imprints in and upon them some-
thing of His own Nature. He manifests in and through them
"his everlasting power and divinity" (Rom. i: 20). As the
highest creature — in this connexion we are not considering the
angels — He creates Man. He, the Absolute Subject, creates a
being which is also "subject", and in this "existence or being as
subject" is "like" God; but Man is absolutely unlike God in
the fact that he is a created, conditioned, limited subject,
whereas God is absolute Subject. He creates in man a creative
nature, and one which is capable of dominion, and fitted for
dominion — once more, like God. But man is absolutely unlike
God in the fact that his creative activity is always connected
with that which is given him, and that his dominion is always
limited by his responsibility towards Him to whom he owes
an account for the use he makes of his powers. In all that makes
man like God, man remains absolutely unlike Him, in the fact
that all that he has, he has received from God, and that for
all that he does, he is responsible, so that his very freedom
can only be realized in absolute obedience to God; thus
human freedom itself shows both man's "likeness" to God,
and his "un-likeness" — an "unlikeness" which is an abiding
fact.

3. The fact that man possesses the power of speech, that
he can use and understand words, is connected with his being
as subject. That, again, is a similarity with God, who indeed
is Himself Logos, who has created all by His Word. God speaks
— man also speaks; who could deny this similarity P^ But, once
more, this similarity also expresses an absolute "unlikeness",
which consists in the fact that man can only speak truth as one
who has received it, thus that he can only speak on the basis
of that which God has already said. Secondly, the "unlikeness"
consists in the fact that God's Word is always more than a
word: namely, the Son, to whom the Word simply bears
witness. (See above. Chap. 4,) Were the human word — the
word of witness — not like the Divine Word, it could not bear
witness at all. The similarity of the human word to the Divine
is the presupposition of the fact that it can bear witness to the
Word of God. But were it not only similar, but identical, then
Christ the Son would not be the Word of God. The "being-as-

' Thus even Karl Barth says: "Speech, even as Divine Speech, is the form
in which reason communicates with reason, person with person . . . primarily
analogous with the process in the natural-corporeal sphere of creation."
(K.D., I. I, p. 139.)

177

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

subject" which resembles the divine, the personal being of
man, is the presupposition of the fact that God's revelation
can take place in the Incarnation of the Son;^ the human word
which is like the divine is the presupposition of the fact that
it can be the bearer of the Divine Word. This "likeness" which
does not exclude absolute "unlikeness", is thus the possibility
of revelation, and of the knowledge of God.

All this, however, can only be understood on the basis of
the event of revelation, in faith. The "likeness" is, therefore,
not the basis of a theologia naturalis, because the sinful reason
always understands this "likeness" in a wrong way, without
perceiving the radical "unlikeness" at the same time, which is
rooted in the fact that God alone is God, that He is Creator and
Lord. In particular, the Neo-Platonist doctrine of the "analogia
ends" is a misunderstanding of this kind, in so far as it is based
upon a speculative ontological theory of a hierarchy of being,
but not upon the Biblical idea of the Creator and Lord. Only
where this Neo-Platonist theory lies at the basis of thought can
one believe that it is possible to achieve the knowledge of God
by the way of abstraction ; only then can one hold the view that
in absolute being, thus in the abstract conception of "object",
in the "ens" , in that of "absolute substance", we have grasped
what faith calls "God".

2. THE "intolerance" OF GOD

In recent times the tolerance of the Indian religions —
including Buddhism — and of mysticism in general, has often
been praised at the expense of the "intolerance" of Christianity.
If tolerance is taken to mean simply that the propagation of
one's own belief and its defence must be carried on without
any resort to coercion of any kind, then a right view of the
Christian doctrine of God would necessarily demand the most
complete tolerance. The God who gave His own Son for the
redemption of the world, and whose glory has been revealed in
the Cross of His Son. does not will that the message of His
Name should be propagated by fire and sword, the burning of
heretics, or by compulsory baptism. For His kingdom is not
of this world (John i8: 36). Nothing shows so plainly how far
historical empirical Christianity has fallen away from the Gospel
than the growth of the use of force in support of the Word of
God.

' Cf. Luther, "Quia conditus est [homo) ad imaginem invisibilis Dei, occulte
per hoc significatur , Deum se revelaturum mundo in homine Christo. {W., 42, 66.)

178

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 14

But if tolerance means the "toleration" of a different belief,
to the extent of not laying any stress on the truth of revelation
against the one who does not share this belief, then "tolerance"
has almost come to mean a "relativist" outlook which does not
believe that absolute truth exists. This relativism (which lies
behind Lessing's parable of the Three Rings), is, in the last
resort, the renunciation of Truth and the Good. Truth itself is
intolerant: "Verum judex sui et falsi". And the Good is intol-
erant; for it wills that evil should not exist. It is therefore no
accident that the highest spiritual religions are intolerant —
namely, all those which acknowledge God as Lord — and, above
all, that faith which aloije knows the Holy Lord is in the
highest degree intolerant. But because this Holiness is identical
with Love, this sovereign will with self-surrender, a genuine
faith in Christ can only preserve its "intolerance" in the loving
missionary spirit which renounces all dependence on force,
even for its own protection.

The tolerance of the Indian religions and of mysticism is
intimately connected with the lack of the personal idea of
God. "The" Absolute has no power to reject, and no will to
conquer; therefore it is not exclusive. Likewise, mysticism is
always determined by the idea that the Ultimate is inexpressible;
hence everything, even the most contradictory statements,
can be conceived as symbols of this Ultimate. Mysticism does
not mould the will, and it has no vigorous purpose ; the idea of
struggle and of victory is foreign to it. It is satisfied that the
individual should become "one with the Infinite", without
enquiring what is happening to humanity as a whole. Its
non-historical character precludes any goal of history at which
man has to aim, an aim which necessarily excludes all other
aims. This is the reason for the weary resignation, the secret
despair of achieving the True and the Good, which dwells
within mysticism.

On the other hand, certainly it is very easy for sinful man to
misunderstand faith in the God who alone wills to be Lord in
the sense of practical intolerance. Sinful man believes that he
ought to help the truth of God by forcible means. This con-
fusion, especially this confusion of truth and violence, charac-
terizes the " Yah weh" -religion of pre-prcphetic Israel, Islam,
and per nefas, empirical Christianity after Constantine. This
false "theocracy" is in opposition to the Gospel of the Feet-
washing and the Cross; there has been no more terrible mis-
understanding of the Cross than the Crusades.

179

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD
3. THE GOOD AS HOLY, AND THE GOOD AS AUTONOMOUS

The philosophy of Positivism (Comte, Spencer), with its
purely natural explanation of the Moral, expresses a very
ancient view, in its extremest form: namely, the conception of
the autonomy of the moral consciousness: the view that there
is an ethic which is independent of God. This view, which has
been continually re-formulated since the days of the Sophists,
and has been defended with varying degrees of intensity, has
a certain basis of fact. As at the present time there are many
people who will admit the existence of a Moral Imperative,
but who will not admit that there is a Divine Will, so also the
history of mankind shows a widespread independence, both of
morality from religion, as well as of religion from morality.
The history of religions shows numerous and impressive
manifestations of the Numinous, which are not only ethically
indifferent, but which must indeed be called immoral and
contrary to morality; on the other hand, we see moral ideas
which develop independently of the given religion, and indeed
which even develop in opposition to it. From the historical,
empirical point of view there is no clear, positive connexion
(and often none at all), between the Moral and the Religious.
Now a certain philosophical ethic has taken this state of affairs
as the starting-point of its thought, and has produced the idea
of the "autonomous" ethic, which, for its part, has found its
most logical secular expression in the philosophy of Positivism.
While at the beginning of the Enlightenment, in the thought of
Herbert of Cherbury, and still more in that of John Locke, the
Moral was never thought of apart from the Will of God, and
while even Kant (although not very clearly, in spite of his
insistence on the "autonomy" of the Moral), to some extent
still admits this connexion, in the post-Kantian philosophy the
idea of an "autonomous" ethic begins to be taken seriously;
the Moral Law, however, is still regarded as something myste-
rious, and transcendent ; only no one now ventures to take the
step of anchoring this Moral Law, from the point of view of
religion, in the Will of God. Positivism, however, eliminates
even that last relic of the religious background of ethics, the
mystery of the Transcendent, and "explains" the Moral from
the psychological and biological point of view, as "necessary"
for human life in community.

And yet there still lingers an element of the mystery of the
Divine, even if not in the form of explicit theory, yet in the

180

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 14

actual moral consciousness, in connexion with the idea of
responsibility; the "thou shalt not . . ." still retains a semi-
numinous quality; it suggests that there is a limit beyond
which it is not right to pass; this prohibition has an almost
"sacred" character. This comes out most clearly in the ele-
mentary phenomenon of "conscience". Even where this is
explained on entirely "natural" grounds, in practice, man feels
intuitively that there is something mysterious about conscience ;
it is like a voice from another world, speaking to us here and
now, checking us, accusing us, and making demands upon us.
The "unwritten law" fills even the unbeliever with a kind of
religious awe, even when he does not want to admit this, and in
theory denies it.

This phenomenon suggests the connexion between the Will
of God and the Moral. From the standpoint of revelation this is
a clear indication of truth; we might indeed regard this fact
as a kind of "proof of Christianity", since only here do we see
how intimate is ' the connexion between religion and ethics;
here it is clearly and plainly defined. Here Religion is wholly
ethical, and ethics is wholly religious. The love of God revealed
in Jesus Christ, Agape, is both the sole norm and the sole
content of moral behaviour. Existence-in-love is both perfect
piety and perfect morality, since even Jesus Christ, while He
reveals the Nature of God, at the same time reveals, and fully
expresses in His life the perfectly Human. Pure Humanity is
also perfect divinity; the true Humanum is present where the
true Divinum reveals itself.

All this, however, shows that the separation between a
rehgion which is indifferent to ethics, and an ethic which has
no use for religion, and thus the phenomenon of an ethic which
is supposed to be "autonomous", is a profound misunderstanding
of truth. Man's sinful blindness comes out in the fact that
instead of honouring a Holy God, he pays homage to an ethically
neutral or even immoral Numinous, The fact that he believes
in an autonomous ethic, and thus regards the Moral Law as
severed from the Will of God, and the Law of God implanted in
his reason as the law of his reason, as "autonomy", is due to
his self-willed alienation from God. A "religion" which respects
no "law", and an ethic which has lost all sense of the Holy,
are both products of the Fall: both show what happens when
man is severed from his Creator. This would also be true,
if it could be proved to apply to that which is known in the
scale of development as "primitive religion". In actual fact,

181

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

however, it is precisely the "primitive" rehgions which show
a remarkable union of ethical and religious elements in the
phenomenon of Taboo, which erects barriers which are both
"numinous" and "ethical". This does not mean that this
"primitive" element could be equated with that which might
be described in theological terms as the "primal" or "origmal";
for even this primitive unity of religion and morality, when
measured by the truly Moral and the truly Religious, is both
non-moral and non-rehgious. The "Original", in the sense of
the Revelation in Creation, cannot be classified under any
historical heading, nor under any theory of development, any
more than this is possible for the Fall. (On this point see my
theological anthropology, Der Mensch im Widerspruch, pp.
121 ff.)

182

CHAPTER 15

GOD IS LOVE

The statement "God is Love" points to the very heart of the
message of the New Testament, of the Christian Gospel. As in
the Old Testament everything turns on the Holiness of God,
so in the New everything turns on the Love of God. Here the
main concern is with the love of the holy God ; hence the truth
of the Holiness of God is not only historically but actually the
first to be perceived ; but the Holiness which the Bible teaches
is the Holiness of the God who is Love, therefore the truth of
the Holiness of God is completed in the knowledge of His Love.
This indissoluble connexion between Holiness and Love is the
characteristic and decisive element in the Christian Idea of
God. Thus, in this paradoxical dualism of Holiness and Love,
God reveals His Name to us; it is thus that He wills to be
known and worshipped. It is thus that He reveals Himself,
simply and solely, in the Bible, in Jesus Christ.

The message that God is Love, is something wholly new in
the world. We perceive this if we try to apply the statement to
the divinities of the various religions of the world: Wotan is
Love, Zeus, Jupiter, Brahma, Ahura Mazda, Vishnu, Allah,
is Love. All these combinations are obviously wholly impossible.
Even the God of Plato, who is the principle of all Good, is not
Love. Plato would have met the statement "God is Love" with
a bewildered shake of the head. From the standpoint of his
thought such a statement would have been utter nonsense.
"One only loves that which one does not possess, and that which
one lacks. . . .^ Whoever would dream of desiring that which he
already possesses." "A god does not have any intercourse with
men. "2 The idea of love, and the humanly-conceived idea of the
god who is entirely self-sufficient are mutually exclusive.
Although from the point of view of the Platonist, Aristotelian,
or Neo-Platonist philosophy, it is true that it is quite proper
to say that man can, and indeed must love God, 3 yet it is
equally clear that to introduce the statement "God is Love"
into their systems of thought, would be completely nonsensical.
Rather, this statement is the supreme point of the Biblical

■ Plato, Symposium, p. 200. ' Ibid., p. 203.

3 Exactly the same may be said of the "amor intellectualis Dei" of Spinoza,
who denies the love of God, but desires love to God.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

revelation alone, and only in this connexion is it possible and
intelligible. The God who makes Himself known to us in His
revelation, who, above all, discloses His Name to us in the
Incarnation of the Word in Jesus Christ, is the God whose whole
revelation is one sole movement of gracious condescension to
man, an act of saving Mercy.

This connexion between the revelation' and the incompre-
hensible Mercy of God is proclaimed for the first time by the
Prophet Hosea. The "Unfathomable" — the love that is not
based upon any quality in Israel, but solely in the election
which is rooted in the will of God — expresses the eternal love of
God. God's faithfulness to His unfaithful people springs out of
an incomprehensible love, for which the "foolish" love of Hosea
for his unfaithful wife is both the most daring parable of the
love of God and also one which is chosen by God Himself.
In the later testimony to revelation, too, in the writings of
Jeremiah, 2 and in the Book of Deuteronomy, the Covenant of
God with Israel is the outflow of His eternal Love. 3 It is not
because there is anything special about Israel — for it was a
particularly unfaithful people — that from the very beginning
and all through its history, with its repeated apostasy, God has
continually drawn it back to Himself, and continually saved
it. 4 The promise of its final redemption, and the fulfilment of
the Covenant with God is based upon this divine love alone,
not upon the fact of Israel's repentance. 5 Thus already in the
Old Testament the witness to the love of God shines forth.

But it is only in the New Testament, in the testimony to the
love shown to sinners by the Saviour, Jesus Christ, "who came
to seek and to save that which was lost",^ that this Love of
God becomes the dominant theme, and indeed the central
theme of the revealed truth which is proclaimed to man. The
sending of the "Son of His love", 7 the surrender of His "own
Son" to the death on the Cross, the act of reconciliation which
proceeds from God alone, all this — and this alone — shows us
what the love of God means; this, too, shows us why it is the
real meaning of the whole of the divine revelation, and thus
that in this revelation God discloses the secret of His being.
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us."8
To reveal this love, that is the Mission of Jesus, that is the
content of the New Covenant. Only now is it possible to express

' Cf. Worterbuch zum N.T., I, pp. 30 ff.

^ Jer. 12: 7-9; 3: 19; 3: 4; 4: I. 3 Deut. 6: 7 ff.

4 Hosea 14: 5. 5 Is. 65: iff.

' Luke 19: 10. 7 Col. 1:3. * I John 4: 10.

184

GOD IS LOVE

the most daring statement that has ever been made in human
language: "God is Love''.^ This imphes that love is not a
"quality" or an "attribute" of God; God does not share with
other beings the quality of being "loving". Rather, Love —
that is, the love of which the Bible speaks — is the very Nature
of God, so that we can say: "He that abideth in love abideth
in God.= It is not that God is "loving", but that He is, as
Luther says, "a furnace and blaze of such love that it fills
heaven and earth". 3 "If a man tried to paint such love, he
would have to make a picture that would not really be human
or angelic or heavenly any longer, but it would be a picture of
God Himself. "4

This becomes clear when we try to say what is here meant
by love. For when we try to make this intelligible, all that we
can say, at its best, is in the form of parable. It is not
that we already know what "love" is, and can then apply it
to God; if this were so, love would be really a "quality" of
God, but not His Nature, as Holiness is His Nature. Rather,
the situation is this: that the idea, the understanding of love —
the Agape of the New Testament — can only be understood from
what happens in revelation. The story of revelation, Jesus
Christ, the Crucified, defines realiter the meaning of the new
conception: Love, which is Agape. Love is the self-giving of
God: love is the free and generous grace of the One who is
Holy Lord.

We can approach this understanding of Agape (in order to
avoid misunderstanding we will in future use this term for
love) by comparing it with what is usually meant by the
word "love". Let us take as our starting-point the Greek idea
of Eros. When the Greek speaks of Love he means and says
Eros. 5 This does not mean only the desire of the senses, the
desire which is connected with the sex-life of man. We interpret
Eros in the broad, and at the same time sublime, sense in which
the word is used in Plato's Symposium. Eros, so it is said in this
work, is the son of Poros — superfluity, and Penia — poverty.

Eros is the desire for that which we do not possess, but
which we ought to have, or would like to have. Eros is therefore
directed towards a particular value ; we love something because
it has value, because it is worthy to be loved. Thus Eros is that
love which is derived from, and evoked by the beloved. It is

' I John 4: 8, 16. » I John 4: 16.

3 Luther, W., 36, 424. 4 Ibid.

5 Cf. Nygren, Eros v. Agape, 2 vols. — and Theol. Wortetbuch zum. N.T., I,
pp. 34 ff-

185

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the movement which aims at the fulfilment of value, the
appropriation of value, the completion of value. The character
of the values which attract us, and thus evoke "love" from us,
is, it is true, a very significant and important question, but it
does not concern us here. This variety of values, at which Eros
aims — whether natural or spiritual, high or low, etc. — may
indeed create different sorts of Eros; but this shows all the
more clearly the element comm.on to all these varieties, namely,
that the love which is Eros is the desire for value, and the will
to appropriate such value. In all cases Eros is based upon,
motivated by, the beloved, therefore it is perfectly intelligible
and transparent.

This, however, is true of all the love with which we are
familiar, whether it be the love of which the poets sing, the
love which draws man and woman together, the love which is
kindled by the sight of beauty, the love of the fatherland,
mother love, the love of friendship — all this is love which is
based upon something which has been "motivated", which is
kindled by its object, and which makes it desire and strive for,
or to enjoy and maintain, union with that which it loves.
Whether the object loved is material or non-material, vital
or non-vital, concrete or abstract, neutral or personal — it is
always something which is known to contain value, something
"lovable" which is loved.

The Love of God, the Agape of the New Testament, is quite
different. It does not seek value, but it creates value or gives
value; it does not desire to get but to give; it is not "attracted"
by some lovable quality, but it is poured out on those who are
worthless and degraded; in the strict sense of the word this
Love is "unfathomable", and "passeth all understanding".
This Divine Love turns to those for whom no one cares, because
there is nothing "lovable" about them — people whom we would
instinctively shun or even hate. The highest expression of this
Agape, therefore, is loving fidelity to the unfaithful, the love
of the Holy God for those who desecrate His sanctuary, the love
of the Holy Lord for one who is rebellious and disobedient—
that is, the sinner. The contrast between Divine and human
love also comes out very clearly in its aim. This love (Agape),
does not seek to transfer a value from the beloved to the one
who loves, it does not seek the fulfilment of value. Here the
One who loves does not seek anything for Himself; all He
desires is to benefit the one He loves. x\nd the benefit He wants
to impart is not "something", but His very Self, for this Love

i86

GOD IS LOVE

is self-surrender, self-giving to the other, to whom love is
directed. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should
not perish, but should have eternal life."' And this indeed took
place "while we were yet sinners",- for "while we were yet
weak . . . Christ died for the ungodh'^ . . .3 while we were
enemies. "4 This Love is truly unfathomable, unmotivated,
incomprehensible; it springs solely from the will of God Him-
self; that is, from His incomprehensible will to give His very
self to us.

This kind of Love we do not know. From our human point
of view we can only understand that other kind of love, which
is based upon, and motivated by, the worthiness of the object
to be loved. Because the pre-Christian philosopher only knows
this sort of love, he cannot proceed to formulate the idea that
God could love. The purer and the more spiritual his idea of
God becomes, the more firmly must he reject the idea that God
can love, or that "He is love. God has indeed all that He needs;
He is in Himself perfect, therefore He is self-sufficient. He
desires nothing outside Himself, hence He does not love. He
can, of course, he loved, for the sake of His perfection, eternity,
and blessedness, but He Himself cannot love ; for only one who
needs fulfilment can and must love ; love is indeed the fulfilment
of value, or rather the striving after the value which will lead
to completion. Hence wherever God is conceived as the Absolute
the Love of God is unthinkable. 5 There is nothing in the
Absolute which could move it to give itself, and to seek com-
munion with a being which is not absolute. The Absolute is
sufficient to itself, and does not go out of itself. The God whom
we "think" for ourselves, the God of human thought, cannot
love.

Only now do we understand why love and revelation belong
to one another. Love is the movement which goes-out-of-
oneself, which stoops down to that which is below: it is the self-
giving, the self-communication of God — and it is this which is
His revelation. The idea of self-communication gathers up into
one the two elements love and revelation. The distinction
between a "formal principle" and a "material principle",
between "revelation" (Bible) and "grace" (Justification) is a
misunderstanding. Revelation is gracious love and grace is
revelation. Jesus Christ is the revelation; He is the Love of

' John 3: 16. ^ Rom. .^: 8. 3 Rom. 5: 6.

4 Rom. 5: 10. 5 Cf. below, pp. 201 ff.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

God in Person. Only when we understand love as this self-
communication of God do we grasp it as groundless and gener-
ous, as freely-electing, as incomprehensible love, as that
which the Bible calls Agape. To know this love means to know
His self -communication. From our end, from our natural
experience of love, the nature of Agape is not intelligible, in so
far as all natural self -giving has its deepest foundation in an
attraction to the beloved. Hence the perception of this love is
bound up with the event of revelation, or, as we have already
said, this love does not define itself in intellectual terms, but
in an Event.

From what we have just said it is also clear why this love
is not a "quality" of God, but is His Nature, like Holiness. For
this love is nothing other than the desire to impart Himself,
the will of God to reveal Himself. God's Nature is this capacity
to impart Himself, just as it is His Nature to will to be Lord
and to assert and maintain His claims. Revelation is not only
the means through which God shows us Himself, as He is; but
revelation is the flowering of the Divine Nature itself; by His
very Nature God is one who wills to reveal Himself; for this
very reason, too. He is the One who loves.

To go forth from Oneself, to impart Oneself — this is the
Nature of the Living God, in contrast to the self-sufficient
Being of the Absolute of thought. Hence revelation is not only
a means, it is the "thing itself". The God of revelation, that is,
the God whose Nature it is to impart Himself, can only be
known in this event of self -revelation ; a God who cannot be
known thus, is eo ipso not this God. Likewise: only in the
actual process of this self-communication do we experience that
God is One who loves; and only in this self-communication do
we learn what this Love is — this Love which is fathomless,
generous, free, and without "motive".

This brings us to the question of the relation between Love
and Holiness; for just as there is an essential and necessary
relation between Love and Revelation, so also, as we have
already seen, is there a similar relation between Hohness and
Revelation. What, then, is the relation between this self-giving
Love and the Holiness of God ?

First of all, there is a sharp and essential contrast; for
Holiness creates distance, but love creates communion. Holiness
erects barriers, love breaks through them. Holiness is the will
which asserts its rights, and claims glory, recognition,
sovereignty. The Holy God speaks thus: "I will to have all for

GOD IS LOVE

Myself; claim everything for Myself." But love is the very
opposite of all this. Love says: "all for thee, nothing for me".
Love is surrender, sacrifice, renunciation of one's own claims,
service. I Above all, however, the contrast becomes clear when
we look at Holiness in its negative form: as the wrath of
God, which annihilates resistance, and finally crushes those
who resist Him. This contrast must not be glossed over or
weakened, for if we do either we make it impossible to
understand either Holiness or Love. The question, however,
is this: How, then, can both exist together? Is there not a
danger that if we do hold them both, by asserting that both
are the Nature of God, our Idea of God may be infected
with an element of tension which must inevitably destroy its
unity ?

First of all we must recognize that Holiness is the pre-
supposition of the Love that gives itself freely. To use a parable
from human life — as the love of a human being only has value
if he has some self-respect, if he has some care for his own
honour, so only the love of the Holy God is truly free and
generous love. Only the God who in Himself possesses all
Perfection, who is perfectly self-sufficient and needs no other,
thus only the God who is absolute Lord, sovereign personality,
can love in freedom, can love unfathomably. One who needs
another loves the other with Eros, not with Agape. Only He
who owes man nothing, because He is Creator and Lord, in
whose Presence all human claims are stilled, ^ because all from
the very outset belongs to God, can love truly generously. So
then also the verdict of God upon sinful man, namely, that he
is an enemy of God, a rebel, one who is godless, 3 is the pre-
supposition of that highest love, which loves the sinner, and
gives peace to the rebel. One who is a sinner in the light of
the Holy Will of God, who has been condemned by the Holy
Law of God, is the one whose sin is forgiven, and to whom
mercy and grace are freely given. Only where the Holiness of
God and the judgment on man which is its necessary result, are
taken very seriously, can we begin to see the unfathomable
nature of the forgiving love of God, and thus can love be
understood as Agape.

But the connexion between Holiness and Love is still more
intimate. We have already seen that Holiness contains the
two-fold movement away from God, for He is Holy — and

' Matt. 20: 28; John 13: i ff.; 10: 11; 15: 13.

^ Jer. 18: 6; Rom. 9: 20 ff. 3 Rom. 5: 8ff.; 8: 7.

189

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

attraction to Him, for He is Love. As the Holy One, God, wills
that His Holy will shall be realized in the whole of His human
creation, by the fact that He is freely and willingly obeyed.
Thus God wills that the creature should become full of His own
nature — and that is the same as His will to impart Himself,
His love. God's Holy will is fulfilled in the creature as perfect
communion with Him, the Holy One, and this is His Love. The
perfect rule of God is only realized where His Love breaks
down all resistance, and where His own love streams back to
Him from the hearts of His own people. Only in the fact that
God gives Himself wholly in His Son do those who are His own
wholly become His property. ^ Thus Holiness merges into Love,
and thus becomes complete. Conversely, the self -communication
of God is only achieved where the creature is wholly united
with the Holy Will of God, and is a mirror of His holy nature;
where, loving Him, it glorifies Him. In Jesus Christ, in the
perfect communion of the redeemed with the Redeemer, and
of the redeemed with each other, both are gathered up
into one: the rule of the Holy God, and the self-communi-
cation of the merciful God.^ There both are one: the complete
Sd^a, the reflection of Holiness in the creature, and complete
communion and salvation.

For us human beings this is a combination of two opposite
elements which is quite beyond our understanding; Holiness
and Love must, first of all, be sharply contrasted, and indeed
set in opposition to one another, and yet Love completes
Holiness, and is only fully Love in the fulfilment of Holiness.
It is thus that Hosea, who was the first to proclaim the un-
fathomable and boundless and incomprehensible love of God,
saw the Love of God: "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?
how shall I deliver thee, Israel . . .? mine heart is turned
within Me, My compassions are kindled together. I will not
execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not return to destroy
Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the
midst of thee: and I will not come in wrath. "3 The Second
Isaiah, likewise, emphasizes the redemption of the people of
Israel from the point of view of "sanctification". As the Holy
One, Yahweh expiates man's guilt. 4 It is thus, however, above
all, that Jesus Christ Himself is the Holy One. In Him God
accomplishes His rule; that is why He is called Christ; in

' This is the thought which lies behind the Biblical phrase that believers,
through the death of Christ, have become His "purchased possession", or have
been "bought with a price" (i Peter i: i8; i Cor. 6: 22; Titus 2: 14).

» John 17: 22. 3 Hosea 11: 8-9 (R.V. marg.). 4 Is. 48: 9; 43: 25.

190

GOD IS LOVE

Him, also, through the Atonement, He creates perfect com-
munion with Himself. It is on the basis of this communion that
Christian believers are called "the saints". The acquittal of
sinners and the blotting out of their guilt is at the same time
their sanctification.' It is the Holy Spirit who unites them,
and makes them holy. Those who are "called to be saints" are
sanctified in Christ; they are "brethren beloved of the Lord . . .
God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctifica-
tion of the Spirit".- The most wonderful testimony to this final
unity between Holiness and reconciling Love is found indeed,
at the close of the Farewell discourses of Jesus in the Gospel
of John: "Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name which Thou
hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are . . . that
the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and lovedst
them, even as Thou lovedst Mc."3 The whole passage is a
symphony, in which the themes of Holiness, Glory, Communion,
and Love constantly recur and blend in perfect harmony.
The "gratia" isiulfilled in the "gloria" , and the "gloria" itself
is simply perfect communion.

Upon what ground can we — may we — must we say: God is
Love? We have already answered this question by saying that
the foundation of this statement can, may, and must be
revelation. We have already rejected the misunderstanding that
the revelation is merely the means of the disclosure through
which we learn that God is Love. For were this the case, there
would be only an indirect, instrumental relation between Love
and revelation, like that which exists between a gift and the
one who transmits the gift. Rather, revelation as the self-
communication of God, is the act of Divine Love. As the One
who reveals, namely, as the One who reveals Himself, God is
One who loves.

In the traditional works of dogmatics, both the Holiness and
the Love of God are treated under the heading of the doctrine
of the "Divine Attributes", and indeed, they are treated after
the "metaphysical attributes" have been discussed, under the
heading of the "ethical attributes". This arrangement shows
the influence of those metaphysical and speculative ideas
derived from Greek thought, which is so utterly opposed to that
of the Bible. The Bible really means that Love is God's
Nature, and not merely His "temper" (or disposition). Just as
sovereignty is His Nature — the Being who is Absolute Subject
— so also, to put it in an abstract way for once, so also His

' I Cor. 6: ii. ' 2 Thess. 2: 13. 3 John 17: 11 ff.

191

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Being as Subject is "for-some-end", it is Being which goes
forth from Itself, Being which communicates Itself. To use a
parable: We cannot grasp or describe the nature of radium
without speaking of radio-activity. Radium is the radiant
element — that is its very nature. Even so the nature of God is
to shine forth in His Glory, communicating activity, personal
being, which wills communion. There is nothing "more meta-
physical" in the doctrine of God than this: that God's Nature
in Himself is precisely His Being-for-us. If the doctrine of God
as He is "in Himself" is the philosophical formula of "Being-
Subject", then the Christian formula for the Being of God is
"Being-for-us", or, as we have just said: "Being-for-something"
(for some purpose). To think that it is correct first of all to
deal with the metaphysical Being of God, and then with His
Love, as His "ethical attribute", means that the decisive
element in the Biblical Idea of God has not been perceived.
That is why it is so important to know the Love of God not as
an "attribute", but as the fundamental Nature of God. God's
Nature is the radiation of spiritual energy, an energy which is
the will to impart Himself. In contrast to all other forms of
existence, this is the Nature of God: the will to impart Himself.
This is Christian ontology, this is the doctrine of the Being
of God, and this is fundamentally different from that of
speculation.

Only now do we see clearly the connexion between revelation
and the Nature of God. Because God's Nature is radiating
spiritual energy, the will to impart Himself, therefore He is the
God of revelation. And because He is the God of revelation, He
can only be known through and in His revelation. Hence all
other "knowledge" of God is an idolatrous materialization of
God, however "spiritualized" and abstract it may be. Hence
the line of thought represented by this speculative, human way
of thinking, which came into the life of the Church from the
Platonist doctrine of God of the Early Church, can only be
injurious to the understanding of the Biblical Idea of God.
How can He whose Nature it is to radiate energy be known
otherwise than in this spiritual radiation? Thus, how can the
God whose Nature it is to will to impart Himself, be known
otherwise than in this self-impartation ? On the other hand,
when man tries to understand God in a different way, by a
process of abstraction from Nature, as the Absolute, it is
inevitable that he should miss the meaning of His Nature;
thus there arises that fatal compromise between Greek

192

GOD IS LOVE

speculative thought and Bibhcal thought, which we see in
the traditional doctrine of the Love of God as an "ethical
attribute"!

At first sight, however, the idea that God's "metaphysical"
Being is not only "God as He is in Himself" (Subject), but also
God as He is "For-us", is objectionable, because it seems to
suggest that such a relation of God to His creation should be
reckoned an integral part of the Nature of Crod, which, indeed,
is unthinkable. In point of fact, we are here concerned with
something quite different, namely, that it is only from this
"God as He is in Himself" that creatures come into being at all.
The first effect of this Being of God "for us" is the Creation ; this
therefore is both the manifestation of His Nature and the
revelation and the work of His Love: the gracious, kindly
Creation of the Lord who in Himself is Perfect, who desires to
have an "other" alongside of Himself, and to have communion
with him, who wishes to impart Himself to him. Moreover, we
must now consider the different forms of the revelation of God,
as the manifestation of His love.

The Original revelation in the Creation already possesses
this "forth-going" character. God might, indeed, have existed
without creating; He does not need a creation. He is sufficient
unto Himself. But He does not will this; He wills to impart
Himself; He wills to give Himself to another, "over against"
Himself, to whom He can impart something of Himself. This
comes out most clearly in the fact that He has created man
"in His own image". It is His will that His own quality, His
own Holiness, should be reflected in the face of Man. The first
truth this reveals is that the basis of the fact that Man is
"made in the Image of God" is Holiness. As the Holy One, God
wills that man's whole personality should be stamped with the
"Image" of the Creator, as His property. This reflection,
however, can, and should, take place only in the fact that God
gives Himself. It is the Love which God gives which streams
back to Him as a return of love from man, that love which is to
make man like God, that self-giving love which has no other
reason than that it is love itself, "that ye may be sons of your
Father which is in heaven", who "maketh His sun to rise on
the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the
unjust". I The man who has been created to be like God is one
who has been created in love, and for love, and this is the
quality of such a love: "We love, because He first loved us. "2

' Matt 5: 43 * I John 4: 19.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

This is man's destiny in Creation, which remains his destiny, in
spite of sin, but which is actually destroyed by sin, and can
only be realized by redemption in Christ: "But we all, with
unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are
transformed into the same image, even as from the Lord the
Spirit."!

Similarly the Old Testament Covenant revelation derives its
origin and its meaning from this self-giving love. It is the
election of the people of Israel, which, from the human point of
view, was so worthless, and in no way worthy of love, with
which it begins. 2 It is the making of the Covenant between the
Lord who stoops down to His people, and the people which
has nothing but its sense of need, in which this election takes
historical form. The Holy One of Israel is the God of the
Covenant who wills to have complete fellowship with, and in,
His people. 3 Even where God's wrath is revealed, this revelation
is not made in order to annihilate Israel, but in order to remove
its resistance, to lead it to repentance and obedience, in order
to create real union with God. 4

Thus, too, the Promised Messiah is not only One who will
establish the Rule of God, but One who is also the Servant of
the Lord, who takes upon Himself the sins of the people, 5 and
His rule, the Messianic Kingdom, is the state where God and
people truly become one.^ The Messianic era is also the era of
the New Covenant, where sin will be forgiven, and the will of
God will be implanted in the hearts of men. 7

Thus the New Testament, the actual Coming of the Promised
Messiah, is both the fulfilment of the revelation, and the fulfil-
ment of the establishment of communion, the dawn of the rule
of God, and the realization of communion with God. Jesus
Christ, the Crucified, is the perfect self-communication of God
to His sinful creatures. In the Cross of Jesus two things take
place : the Lord God comes into His own, and the Love of God
is completely expressed.^ It is the final element in the descending
movement, the "stooping-down" of God to man — and in the
Resurrection this proves to be the victory of the Holy God over
the whole rebellious world. 9

Thus, also, the witness to the revelation, whether it be the
primitive witness of the Apostles or the witness of the Church

■ 2 Cor. 3: i8. J Cf. Ezek. i6: 4 ff. ; Hosea 13: 5; Is. 5: i ff.

3 Exod. 19: 5 ff. ; Jer. 7: 23; 3: 19 ff. * Hosea 6: i ff.

5 Is. 53. * Ezek. 36: 26; 34: 23 ff.

7 Jer. 31: 31 ff. 8 Rom. 3: 25. 9 Col. 2: 15.

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GOD IS LOVE

which is based upon this testimony, is itself both a service and
an act of divine Love: "The love of Christ constraineth us.''^
All preaching is not only the message of the love of God, but it
is a message and a service which is rendered out of love: it is
both readiness for community and the creation of community:
it means drawing others into the communion which we have
with Christ and through Him.^

There is still one point to be cleared up, which militates
against the full understanding of Love as the Nature of God.
If love, in the sense of Agape, generous, self-sacrificing love,
and even the love of our enemies, is what God expects from
man, and is indeed laid upon him as a command, how can
something which man is commanded to do be the Nature of God ?
And how can we maintain that something which is the sum-total
of the Moral Law can only be understood through revelation —
through the self-surrender of God in the death of His Son on
the Cross ? If this Moral Law exists, is there not also a possibility
of understanding what love is without the revelation of God's
grace? In point of fact, one of the deepest roots of the mis-
understanding of Love as merely a "quality" or "attribute"
of God, and thus that love is like other familiar qualities
which we know in our own experience and can then transfer to
God, springs from the reflection that love is the New Com-
mandment. Thus we must try to make quite clear the 'difference
between Agape as a "Command", and the Agape which is
revealed to us in Jesus Christ, and their relation to one another.
From the point we have now reached in our argument, it will
not be difficult to show that all the problems connected with
the fact of the commandment of Love, can be solved.

(i) The controversy between those who maintain that the
summons to love our neighbour — that is. Agape as a Command-
ment— is known to all men, and those who deny this, is very
ancient, and it is still undecided. Obviously both those who deny
this fact and those who assert it have good reasons for their
point of view. 3 This is the actual situation: that among all
peoples, and at all times, there has been some knowledge of a
moral law of responsibility for others, and consideration for
their welfare, or a form of the "Golden Rule". 4 This fact can be
proved historically as well as from reflection upon the Moral

' 2 Cor. 5: 14; I Thess. 2: yff. 2 i John i: 3.

3 Cf. Bultmann, Das christliche Gebot der N achstenliebe in Glauben u.

Verstehen, pp. 229 ff. 4 Matt. 7: 12.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Imperative. The "Golden Rule" is found in many places, quite
apart from the Biblical revelation. ^ But who would care to
maintain that this Golden Rule already contains the whole
mystery of self-giving Love {Agape) ? Even the recognition
of the duty of loving our enemies is a very rare phenomenon in
the history of the moral views of many nations. Still less,
however, is the radical sense which Jesus gives to the require-
ment of love in the Sermon on the Mount generally known.
But the fact that this Commandment contains the whole Law,
that all the Moral Law, or the Divine Command, is summed
up in this, but "this", meant with that absoluteness which
Jesus teaches — indeed, even compared with the moral teaching
of the Old Testament, this is^ something new.

(2) Is the Commandment of love to be understood in the
sense of self-giving love at all ? He who knows love merely as a
command, does not really know what love is. 3 It is in the nature
of law that it demands something which the man who is only
acquainted with law cannot do. But this impotence is in the
last resort also a form of ignorance. The man who only knows
Agape in the form of the Law does not really know what Agape
is. The Law only gives him a glimmer of it, and this is the
reason why the Law is powerless to move the will to that which
is truly the Good. Indeed, ultimately the form of the Com-
mandment is opposed to the content of Agape. How can love
be commandedl Love is precisely that which cannot be com-
manded— for who could love at the bidding of another? And
yet at the same time it is the one thing which must be com-
manded. This is the tragic element in the Moral Law of which
St. Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Romans, 4 which every
Christian knows.

(3) In point of fact, the Moral Law of the love of our neigh-
bour does not stand by itself, but it is the result of the original
relation between the self-giving, creating God, and the man
who has been created by Him and for Him. The first element
is man's relation with God is not the Law, but the self-giving
love of God; but this generous love of God claims the will of
man for Himself. The love which God has first of all given to

' Cf. Westermarck, Christianity and Morals, pp. 70 ff.; Spooner, "Golden
Rule" in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, VI, p. 311.

^ In the Old Testament the command to love our neighbour (Lev. 19: 18)
is one among many others.

3 Cf. "The Dialectic of Law" in my book Man in Revolt.

t Kom. 7: 14 ff.

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GOD IS LOVE

US is to be given back to God and our neighbour in our loving.
Actually, the Moral Law does not come first, but second. It
does not come before, but after the love which is given to us.
Its original form is that which is expressed in the words: "We
love . . . because He first loved us"; the truth is that moral
obedience is man's response to the Love which he has received
as a gift.

But man, in his sinful perversion, has transposed this order;
or, rather, all he has retained of the original revelation of the
Divine Love is the abstract Moral Law, and this in an ambiguous
form. The Law is not the original element, but it is something
which has "slipped in bet ween". ^ But to sinful man it now
seems to be the primary element, that is, until he has learnt to
know the revelation of Christ. The world before, and outside
of, Christ, therefore, knows the Law of God only as the Moral
Law of the love of our neighbour, but not as the command of
the love of God. The twofold Commandment^ is exclusively of
Biblical origin, and — as it is expounded by Jesus — can only
be understood within the context of the divine revelation of
Love. Jesus does not teach an abstract "law in itself", but He
proclaims the living law of the divine Rule which He reveals
and brings with Himself. Hence the meaning of Agape as the
demand of God only becomes intelligible to one who knows the
fulfilment of this law from the standpoint of Jesus Christ, in
the surrender of Christ Himself ; that is, only to one who receives
the divine gift in Jesus Christ in faith. Thus the real knowledge
of what is meant by the command to love our neighbour agrees
with the experience of the love of God which has been given.
Thus it confirms this fact: only one who knows the revelation
of the love of God knows the true meaning of the words "the
love of our neighbour"; a phrase which he may, it is true,
have always known as an abstract law, but whose meaning
always remained hidden from him. What the love that is
commanded is, only he can know who has experienced the love
which has been given. 3

From the days of the Enlightenment the mistaken view has
been widespread that the essential element in Christianity is
the "command to love our neighbour". The fact that Kant
equated the Categorical Imperative with the Sermon on the
Mount4 did a great deal to extend this idea. In this moral

' Rom. 5: 20. * Matt. 22: 37, 38. 3 Rom. 8: 39.

4 In Religion innerhalb der Grenzen . . . IV, 1,1: Die Chrisiliche Religion als
natUrliche Religion.

197

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

teaching the moral task is totally severed from the divine gift,
and in this religious teaching the idea of God has been so
entirely defaced that it has become the idea of a moral Law-
giver. The consequence is, not only is the truth of the self-
giving grace (of God) eliminated, but also the command to love
one's neighbour is misunderstood. The Categorical Imperative
can never command men to love their neighbours, all it can do
is to urge men to respect one another. ^ Respect for other men
is a great thing; but it is not the love of one's neighbour. Kant,
however, was absolutely right when he said that respect alone
could be commanded, but not love. The Biblical Commandment
of the love of one's neighbour cannot be understood, nor is it
intended to be understood, as an isolated commandment.

The Biblical commandment of the love of our neighbour,
both in the Old and in the New Testament, springs from the
proclamation of the divine generous love which comes first. To
put the command, the task, first — that is the misunderstanding.
In the message of the Bible the gift comes first and the task
second. Thus only where the commandment is understood as
coming second does the rational principle of respect for human
persons become the religious commandment of the love of our
neighbour. For only there can love be understood as the love
which gives, and man as the neighbour who needs this love.
Between the Categorical Imperative of Kant and the Biblical
commandment of the love of one's neighbour there lies the
same gulf as that which stretches between his doctrine of the
autonomy of the transcendental reason and the Biblical faith in
the Creator.

This moralistic sterility of the Moral Law in the Enlighten-
ment would not, however, have been possible had not the
Church, on the other hand, in its ecclesiastical orthodoxy,
misunderstood the nature of faith (by regarding it as belief in
Verbal Inspiration and in a body of doctrine), and thus des-
troyed love. As against an orthodoxy which had become
ethically sterile the moral sentiment and seriousness of the
Kantian Enlightenment was as much justified in its attitude
as, measured by the standard of the Bible, it was mistaken
about the indissoluble union of faith and love. The Bible knows
nothing of that "orthodox", ethically sterile, literahst view of
Biblical Inspiration. It only knows of "faith which worketh
through love". 2 Faith is indeed simply being grasped and held

I Kant, Kr. d. praki. Vernunft, I, i B, III. "Love cannot be commanded"
(Cf. Offenbarung v. Vernunft, pp. 326 ff.). * Gal. 5: 6.

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GOD IS LOVE

by the love of God in Jesus Christ. It is that which makes man
a "new creature"^ which comes to pass when a man is "in
Christ", that he may no longer "live unto himself ".^ The
self-communication of God to man does not end in "knowing
something about" faith, but in the actual communication of
His self-giving love. Hence the final word of the Biblical
revelation is not "faith" but "love". Faith is indeed simply the
vessel which receives the divine love. 3 It is not faith which
"never faileth"4 — for it disappears with the earthly conditions
of life — but love ; for this love is : God Himself. God is not faith,
but God is love. The fact that God is love is the quintessence,
the central word of the whole Bible. The God of revelation is
the God of love.

Hence, because God is the Holy One, and because He is Love,
He wills to impart Himself. His Nature, His inmost secret is
self-communication. Thus within Himself, "before all worlds".
He is the Self-Communicating One. This brings us to the
mystery of the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine tells us
that the God who reveals His Nature to us is the same as the
Son who reveals the divine Nature, and that they are both the
same God, and yet distinct, as the Revealer and the Revealed.
The doctrine of the Triune God contains the truth — which we
have already perceived to be the decisive element in the Biblical
doctrine of God: the unity of God's Nature and of His revela-
tion. If we ask what is the Name in which God reveals to us
His Nature, then the answer of the New Testament is : It is the
threefold Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

' 2 Cor. 5: 17. '2 Cor. 5: 15.

3 Rom. 5: I and 8. 4 i Cor. 13: 8.

199

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 15

ON THE HISTORY OF THE TERM "AGAPE"

To describe the pre-Christian world — and in this sense, too,
the non-Christian world — as "a world without love" (Uhlhorn:
Geschichie der chrisilichen Liehestdtigkeit , I, pp. 3-39), may
seem to some to be an unfair statement, and to others to be true
and fitting. Outside the Christian sphere of influence there
were, and are, mother-love, the love of friendship, the love of
country; there is even a well-known doctrine and practice of
the love of enemies (Cf. Hans Haas, Idee und Ideal der Feindes-
liebe in der ausserchristlichen Welt; see also the references to
the literature of the subject in Westermarck, op. cit., p. 78).

Nor can we deny that in the non-Christian religions there
are ideas of divine goodness, divine good-will, of a disposition
to help and to forgive. Alongside of "evil", destructive, hostile,
divine forces, there are also those which give life generously,
who do good to man, and care for his needs. There is even a
"gracious" God (Cf. K. Hutten, Die Bhakti-Religion in Indien
und der christliche Glaube). But the fact that God is Love, and
thus that love is the very essence of the Nature of God, is
never explicitly said anywhere, and still less is it revealed in
divine self-surrender. The God of the Bhakii religion, which is
often regarded as a parallel to the Christian Faith, is "essentially
— in his relation to the World — wholly uninterested. This
springs directly from the fact of His isolation and His sublimity"
{op. cit., p. 36). He is not a Subject who goes forth from Himself,
w^ho gives Himself freely.

Thus the God of Epictetus is, it is true, a kindly Father,
and it is our noblest duty to thank and praise Him {Gesprdche,
Ausg. R. MUcke, pp. 49 ff.). But here there is no trace of the
love of God who desires to give Himself to His creatures. When,
however, we try to formulate an answer to this question, on
the basis of the Comparative Study of Religion, then we must
say that non-Christian religion does not know the God of love;
this means that here the nature of Love itself, as the reply of
man to the self -revealing love of God, has not been understood.
Even the love of enemies which we find here is something quite
different from the Agape of the New Testament: "Thus when
the Sage exercises love, and, it is true, even to his enemies, he
does so, not out of interest in the individual, but only because
he has the whole in his mind, and does not think it is worth

200

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I 5

while getting excited about one individual" (R.G.G., III,
Sp. 1636).

Hence the pre-Christian world, the world outside the Bible,
does not know what the New Testament calls "Agape" . But
as we have already seen, this was already known by Hosea,
and indeed in a strict and indissoluble connexion with the
revelation of the merciful and gracious God: namely, as an
answer to His generous love. Agape thus belongs to that sphere
in which God is shown to us as He stoops down to man, which
is completed in Jesus Christ, in His self-surrender on the Cross.

Hence, Agape is sharply opposed to that whole idea —
peculiar to later Hellenism — of the ascent of the soul to God,
of that "Alexandrine world-scheme" which began with Aristotle
(Cf. Nygren, Agape and Eros, I, pp. 163 ff.), which reached its
fullest development in Neo-Platonism, where its influence was
most extensive, both in religion and in philosophy.

Theology — and philosophy — are indebted to Anders Nygren
not only for the, clear way in which he has worked out the
contrast between Eros and Agape, but also for the proof (which
he carries out in the second volume of this work) of the powerful
influence exerted by the "Eros-motif" in the formation of the
patristic and the mediaeval idea of Love. As Nygren moves
through the history of the theology of the Early Church and
the Mediaeval Church, conducting a searching investigation
into the purity of the idea of Agape, on the one hand, and the
influence of the Eros-motif, on the other, he arrives at a critical
distinction between the Christian and the non-Christian
elements in the theology of the Fathers of the Church and of
the Scholastic theologians, which runs exactly parallel with our
own, which starts from the contradiction between the theology
of revelation and the speculative theory of the Absolute. The
enquiry into the validity of the one criterion yields results
which apply equally well to the other.

Thus it appears that Irenaeus, the early theologian who
thinks most purely in terms of revelation, and not in terms of
speculative theology [see my remarks on Irenaeus in Der
Mittler, pp. 219 ff.), is also the one who develops the idea of
Agape which is least influenced by the Eros-motif: "Nowhere
in the Early Church do we meet the idea of Agape worked out
so clearly as in the thought of Irenaeus" {op. cit., p. 208). On
the other hand, we see that Origen, who was greatly influenced
by Plato, also confuses Agape and Eros. In the thought of
Augustine, his blending of speculation on the Absolute with

201

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the theology of revelation corresponds also to an idea of love
which represents a compromise between Eros and Agape: the
idea of Caritas, an idea which was destined to have an immense
influence on all who came after him.

It was only to be expected that Dionysius the Areopagite,
in his Christian dress, whose purely Neo-Platonist philosophy
is only superficially coloured with a Christian tinge, also has
an idea of love which bears the features of Eros rather than of
Agape. In point of fact, this test case does not break down.
Nygren thus sums up his extremely careful analysis of the idea
of love in the thought of the Areopagite thus : "So we see him . . .
even formally, replacing Agape by Eros." The Areopagite was
not satisfied with the compromise of Origen between Agape and
Eros, but "he went so far as to contest it actively" (p. 410).
"Eros is diviner than Agape" , says the Areopagite himself
{op. cit., p. 413).

A classical example, and characteristic of the Golden period
of the Middle Ages, and also powerful in its after-effects, is
Bonaventura's Itinerarium mentis in Deum, this — when looked
at from the formal point of view — wonderful little book of
doctrine, which, like scarcely any other, shows the permeation
of mediaeval theology and piety with the spirit of Neo-Platonist
speculation and mysticism. "God is love; but Bonaventura
conceives the divine love in the manner which had become
usual after Augustine and Dionysius, as equally meaning the
love of God for Himself ... in virtue of which the divine Being
eternally contemplates Himself and is turned inwards upon
Himself" {op. cit., p. 450). Hence the motif of "ascent" — the
Itinerarium ad Deum, the "Alexandrine world-scheme" —
dominates the thinking of this great mystic, who quotes no
"Father of the Church" so often and so reverently as he quotes
the Neo-Platonist, Dionysius the Areopagite.

On the other hand, by this criterion, also, the Reformation
shows a return to the Biblical understanding of God. Luther
indeed regarded the Areopagite as one who had done much
harm: Admoneo vos, ut istam Dionysii mysticam theologiam . . .
detestimini tamquam pestem aliquam" {Disp. against the Anti-
nomians, Drews, p. 294; W.A., 39, I, p. 390). He is aware of the
connexion between this kind of mysticism, speculative ontology,
and the idea of Merit. Grace is the descent of God, not the
ascent of man, the Itinerarium of the obedient Servant of the
Lord to the death of the Cross, not that of the ascent of man to
heaven: "ipse descendit et paravit scalam." "He will not have

202

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I5

thee to ascend, but He comes to thee, and has made a ladder, a
way and a bridge unto thee" {W.A., i6, p. 144). Here, therefore,
the pure idea of Agape breaks through the mediaeval Caritas-
Eros tradition. "Amor Dei non invenit, sed creat suum diligihle,
amor hominis fit a suo diligihili" , occurs already in the Heidel-
berger Disputation {W.A., I, p. 354). It is the gracious love
which makes its free choice, which loves for no "reason", which,
therefore, since it is "given", does not seek that which is
"diligibile" in man, but as a love which is "shed abroad" turns
towards the man who is not worthy of love. (Cf. Nygren, p. 551.)
We must admit, that of all the Reformers it was Luther who
saw and felt this contrast most plainly, while in Zwingli —
especially in his work on Divine Providence — the Neo-Platonist
ideas of the "summum bonum" and the "summum esse" have
a disturbing influence; Calvin's witness to the love of God was
hindered by his doctrine of Predestination, and his idea of
Love was somewhat rationalized by the influence of Stoicism.

The doctrine oi the Love of God was terribly meagre among
the Protestant scholastic theologians, who, in their doctrine
of the Divine Attributes, revert entirely to the mediaeval
metaphysic. The doctrine of God's Nature is confined to the
statement of His "infinitas, spiritualis essentia"; among the
Divine Attributes "Love" is scarcely mentioned in comparison
with "unit as, simplicitas, immutabilitas , infinitas, immensitas,"
etc., as well as "sanctitas" and "justitia" . Love is — so to say —
an outflow of His "bonitas". But what is said of it — in this
connexion, in the doctrine of God — is strongly influenced by
the Neo-Platonist Eros-motif: "exemplar perfectionis creatae;
allicit quoque aut movet in sui tanquam summi boni amorem ac
desiderium" (Baier, in Schmid, Dogmatik der ev. Luth. Kirche,
p. 82). According to Reformed doctrine the Love of God is a
"propensio quaedam benevola et benefica versus creaturas" — but
that could have been said by a sage like Epictetus (cf. Heppe,
Dogmatik der ev. ref. Kirche, p. 49).

On the whole, the later dogmatic theologians follow the erro-
neous tradition, until — here, too, once more — von Oettingen as
the first, finds his way back to the truth of the Bible as taught
at the Reformation, and teaches the Holiness and the Love of
God ("God, the Holy Love") as the Nature of God, which are
to be distinguished from His Attributes {Lutherische Dogmatik,
H, pp. 140 ff.). In the thought of Schlatter, who is usually so
close to the thought of the Bible, his brief teaching on the love
of God culminates in the strange sentence: "This is for us the

203

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

final word that we can attain about God, because in us nothing
deeper can be found than the good will." On the other hand,
the observations of K^hler, the other great "Biblical" theo-
logian, are excellent {Die Wissenschaft der christlichen Lehre,
pp. 230 ff.). Here he works out clearly both the nature of love
as well as the connexion between revelation and the knowledge
of love.

Equally excellent are Karl Earth's observations on God's
Being as the One who loves in freedom {Kirchl. Dogm., II, i,
pp. 288 ff.). "His inmost Self is His self-communication" [op. cit.,
p. 31). The critical remark: "If we seek the goodness of God
behind His Love, in a 'summum honum' , which differs from
His Love, then in the effort to define this summum honum it
would be difficult to avoid falling back into the idea of pure
unmoving Being" {op. cit., p. 311) — shows that he is aware of
the contrast between his own doctrine of God and the onto-
logical speculative doctrine of the God of the Scholastic
tradition. Yet his love for the Reformed scholastic thinkers
prevents him from being fully aware of the Neo-Platonist
injury they have inflicted on the Idea of God, in spite of his apt
remarks about Polanus and Quenstedt, p. 313.

The doctrine of the love of God, the heart of the Gospel,
obscured by the disastrous Neo-Platonist doctrine of the
summum honum, was re-discovered by the Reformers, but in
their followers it was once more hidden by scholastic speculation,
and in spite of much excellent preparatory work we shall need
a great deal of intellectual labour based on the truth of the
Bible, before this doctrine can once more gain its full New
Testament depth.

204

CHAPTER l6

THE TRIUNE GOD

When we turn to the problem of the doctrine of the Trinity,
we are confronted by a pecuharly contradictory situation. On
the one hand, the history of Christian theology and of dogma
teaches us to regard the dogma of the Trinity as the distinctive
element in the Christian Idea of God, that which distinguishes
it from the Idea of God in Judaism and in Islam, and indeed,
in all forms of rational Theism. Judaism, Islam, and rational
Theism are Unitarian. On the other hand, we must honestly
admit that the doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of
the early Christian — New Testament — message, nor has it
ever been a central article of faith in the religious life of the
Christian Church as a whole, at any period in its history.
Thus we are forced to ask: Is this truth the centre of Christian
theology, but not the centre of the Christian Faith? Is such a
discrepancy between theology and faith possible? Or, is this
due to an erroneous development in the formation of the
doctrine of the Church as a whole ?

Certainly, it cannot be denied that not only the word
"Trinity", but even the explicit idea of the Trinity is absent
from the apostolic witness to the faith; it is equally certain
and incontestable that the best theological tradition, with one
accord, clearly points to the Trinity as its centre. However,
there is a third point to be noted, namely, that the re-discovery
of the New Testament message at the Reformation did not
re-vitalize this particular theological doctrine; the fact is, the
Reformers did not touch or alter this fundamental dogma of
the ancient Church, but rather, so to speak, "by-passed" it,
than made it the subject of their own theological reflection.
The statement of Melanchthon,^ "Mysteria divinitas rectius
adoraverimus quam vestigaverimus" , is characteristic of this
attitude. Calvin expresses himself in the same way; he regards
the doctrine of the Trinity from the following point of view
only; namely, that through its conceptions, which differ from
those of the Bible, the opponent of the divinity of Christ —
who is the enemy of the Christian Faith — is forced to throw off

' On the triadic passages in the N.T., see below. The only trinitarian passage
which is found in some ancient versions of the Bible (i John 5: 7) is regarded
as not genuine. ' Loci. com. Introduction.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

his disguise, and to fight in the open, instead of concealing his
hostiUty under a cloak of Christianity. ^

How are we to explain this strange situation ? Here I antici-
pate the result of the following enquiry, and state it in the
form of a thesis: The ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity,
established by the dogma of the ancient Church, is not a
Biblical kerygma, therefore it is not the kerygma of the Church,
but it is a theological doctrine which defends the central faith
of the Bible and of the Church. Hence it does not belong to
the sphere of the Church's message, but it belongs to the
sphere of theology; in this sphere it is the work of the Church
to test and examine its message, in the light of the Word of
God given to the Church. Certainly in this process of theo-
logical reflection the doctrine of the Trinity is central.

The starting-point of the doctrine of the Trinity is, naturally,
not a speculative one, but the simple testimony of the New
Testament. We are not concerned with the God of thought,
but with the God who makes His Name known. But He makes
His Name known as the Name of the Father; He makes this
Name of the Father known through the Son; and He makes
the Son known as the Son of the Father, and the Father as
Father of the Son through the Holy Spirit. These three names
constitute the actual content of the New Testament message.
This is a fact which no one can deny.

Our God is called the "Father in heaven". This is the Name
which the Christian Church gave Him from the very beginning.
The fact, however, that she gave Him this Name was not her
own discovery, nor was it due to her own caprice. It was
taught by the Son, by Jesus Christ. The fact that Jesus Christ
is the Son, the fjbovoyev^s^ or the lSlos vl6s,^ "the" Son, not
"a" son, alongside of other sons or children of God, is the
decisive central confession of faith of the Primitive Christian
Church. Its creed therefore speaks of Him who makes His
Name known as the Name of the Father, and of Him who makes
this Father-Name known as the Son. But the Church speaks
of this disclosure of the Name of the Father through the Son
not merely in the sense of something historical in the past,
but also in the sense of a present reality. The Father and the
Son are present in the Church — through the Holy Spirit. If
the Name "Father" designates the origin and content of the

' Insiiiuiio, I, 13, 4. ' John i: 14, 18; 3: 16-18. 3 Rom. 8: 32.

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THE TRIUNE GOD

revelation, the Name of the "Son" designates the historic
Mediator, and the "Holy Spirit" the present reality of this
revelation. These three Names sum up the whole of the New
Testament message. People may reject this view, but no one
can deny that this is the message of the New Testament, ^
which contains everything that belongs to the Gospel: the
Kingdom, the Atonement, Redemption, the final consum-
mation of the Rule of God. These three Names — Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, in their unity and in their difference, are the
content and the meaning of the New Testament. ^ The Primitive
Christian Church lived on the fact that through the Son it had
the Father, and that it was united with the Father and the
Son through the Holy Spirit. This does not need to be proved,
but, admitted by everyone, may be taken as the starting-point.
The problem does not consist in the fact that there are these
three Names, but in the question: What is their relation to
each other?

The God who rpakes His Name known, is the God who wills
to be called "Father". This is the Name by which He wills that
we should call upon Him: "Our Father, who art in heaven."
Jesus has made this Name known to men ; in the knowledge of
the Father the historical movement of the revelation which
culminates in Jesus Christ, reaches its goal. He came in order
to show us the Father,3 and the flowering of faith in the heart of
man, effected by the Holy Spirit, is expressed in the cry:
"Abba", "Father".4

"That we may know the mystery of the Father", 5 that those
who believe in Christ "may have the name of His Father written
in their foreheads"^ — this, and this alone, is the one thing that
matters. Jesus Himself says the same thing: "No one knoweth
the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal
Him."7

The Father-Name for God is not, however, as such, the new
and distinctive element in the Biblical revelation. Zeus, indeed,
was called "Father", and the name of "Father" was often
used to designate the Supreme Being. It is not the name of

' It is also plainly that of the Synoptic Gospels. The fact that, even if in a
veiled way, it is the message of Jesus Himself, has gradually been admitted by
Biblical critics since Albert Schweitzer.

^ Explicit confirmation is contained in passages like Matt. 28: 19; 2 Cor.

13: 13-

3 Matt. 11: 27; John 16: 25; 17: i ff . 4 Rom. 8: 15; Gal. 4: 6.

5 Col. 2 : 2 — this is what is meant, even if the reading "God" is more strictly
accurate. * Rev. 14: i. 7 Matt, ii: 27.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

"Father" in general, but the Name of Father, which the Bible
teaches us to say, which constitutes the content of the revela-
tion. Hence we must take special note of the fact that the
Father-Name for God is not in any way prominent in the Old
Testament. When He is called "Father" in the Old Testament
(which rarely occurs) the allusion is chiefly to His Creative
Power and His Providential Care, but not to that which is
the real meaning of the title of Father in the New Testament :
the Nature of the Holy and the Merciful God in its unity. ^
Holiness and Love, not confused with one another, yet abso-
lutely united, the Holy "majesias" with His right over all
creation as its Author, and the merciful love which stoops to
the lost: only in the New Testament Name of "Father" are
both these aspects of His Nature gathered up into a unity. It is
the paradoxical unity of One who creates and wills absolute
distance from the creature, and yet absolute communion with
the creature.

But this knowledge of the Father is far from self-evident;
rather it is the great and glorious new truth given to mankind
in Jesus Christ; this is shown above all in the fact that God
is not only "the Father", absolutely, but that He is called the
"Father of our Lord Jesus Christ". ^ Through Him, in Him,
He is our Father. He becomes our Father through the fact that
the Son, who alone knows Him, "wills to reveal Him to us".
We know God as our Father through the fact that we know
Him first of all as the Father of this Son, Jesus, and through
the fact that we know this Jesus as the Son of the Father. Our
vlodealoc, our status as children of God, is both revealed, and
made a reality, through Him who from the very outset is the
Son, and who therefore is called the tSio? vtos or the [xovoyev-fjs
vLos.^ Hence the terms which the New Testament uses when
speaking of "the Father" are quite different from those which
describe a general, rational, timeless idea of the Fatherhood of
God, as, for instance, in the theology of the Enlightenment.
The knowledge of God as our Father is the work of the Son,
and is the counterpart of the truth that Jesus is the Son of the
Father.

Similarly, it is far from obvious that we know the Son as the
I810S vtos, as the fxovoyevrjs irapd rod ■narpos-'^ How could anyone

' The only passage which has an affinity with the N.T. use of the Father-
Name (Ps. 103: 13) does not call Him "Father", but compares God with a
father. » 2 Cor. i: 3; 11; 31; Eph. i: 3, etc.

3 See above, p. 206. ■» John i : 14.

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THE TRIUNE GOD

perceive in the Crucified One on Golgotha "the glory as of the
Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth ?"^
When Jesus received for the first time — from the lips of Peter
— the confession: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living
God", He Himself emphasized the miraculous nature of this
statement. "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- Jonah: for flesh and
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is
in heaven. "2 The proclamation that Jesus was the Son of God,
the promised Messiah, has indeed, from the very earliest times
down to the present day, been more often rejected than
accepted. "To reveal His Son in me" '.i Saul, the erstwhile
persecutor of the Christians, knew that this was the work of
the Holy Spirit. 4 The witness within my heart which enables
me to appropriate to myself the truth which the Bible or the
Church proclaims to me from without, is the Testimonium
spiritus sancti.

Thus two events had to take place before the mysterious,
unknown God could be revealed as the Father : He had to come
forth from His Mystery, enter into history, and "show" Himself
as Father in the form of man, in the Son; and He had to en-
lighten the darkened heart of men through the Holy Spirit,
that in the form of the Man Jesus we might be able to see the
Son, and in the Son the Father. That is the first intelligible
connexion of the three Names in the testimony of the New
Testament. This connexion does not yet formulate a doctrine
of the Trinity, but it provides the starting-point. In these three
Names — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the One God makes His
Name known to us.

(2)

In the centre of the controversies about the Trinity stands
the name which is also the centre of the New Testament
witness: The Son. This was indeed the characteristic element
in the community of disciples, in contrast to the Jews and the
pagans; they confessed Jesus as Lord, and called upon His
Name in prayer. In the New Testament itself the Name of the
Son has first of all a functional or official character. The idea
behind this term is not that of a "generatio" , but it is a title of
dignity. The Messianic King in Psalms 2 and no (which are
constantly quoted in this connexion) is called "Son". The
phrase "this day have I begotten thee", 5 does not mean a

John i: 14.

» Matt. 16: 16 ff.

3 Gal. i: 15.

1 Cor. 12: 3.

5 Ps. 2: 7.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

physical or metaphysical process of procreation, but an in-
vestiture with royal dignity. How the Son proceeds from the
Father? — at first this question was not even asked; what is
said is this: that the Son, endowed with the authority of the
Father, "represents" Him upon earth, and establishes His royal
dominion. The original Christology was entirely concerned with
action; indeed, we might say that its essential idea could only
be expressed in verbs and not in nouns. All that matters is
what Jesus does as the Christ. From this we learn what and
who He is. At first the statements about His work far outweigh
those about the mystery of His Person, His Being. Indeed, the
mystery of His Being itself, where it becomes a special point of
interest, is gathered up in ideas which point to His Work. Who
is He? He is the Revealer, the Reconciler, the Redeemer, the
Lord, the Liberator, the One who brings in the Kingdom of
God. He is the One in whom God becomes present, Immanuel,
God with us. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto
Himself. "I He is the active, personal Presence of God, the
personal God at work, the Word of God become Person, and the
Act of God become Man. In Him God deals with us as the
Mediator. Or, as John puts it so simply: It is He in whom the
Father shows us who He is. "He that hath seen Me hath seen
the Father."^

It is thus that Jesus bears witness to Himself in His own
teaching, which is historically intelligible. He avoids, it is true,
the actual use of the name Messiah for Himself. But again and
again, in many different ways. He implies that with Him the
new Age, the era of the new Covenant, the Messianic Age, has
dawned. 3 He is the One who ushers in this turning-point in the
history of man. As such He is endowed with divine authority.
That is why He who had learned the wisdom of the Law and
the Prophets, dared to confront the whole authority of the
written revelation with the great claim: "But / say unto
you ..." That is why He says that with Him the period of
the Prophets is past, that the last and the greatest of the
Prophets, John the Baptist, was less than the least in the
Kingdom of heaven, 4 because with Him, Jesus, the Kingdom of
God has not only come near, but has "arrived" or dawned.5
That is why He speaks of the fact of His own coming in a way
no prophet ever spoke of himself. This phrase "I am come"^

' 2 Cor. 5: ig. » John 14: 19.

3 Cf. Kiimmel, Verheissung v. Erfullung, 1945. < Matt. 11: 11.

5 Matt. 12: 28. * Luke 12: 49; Matt. 20: 28.

210

THE TRIUNE GOD

points towards the dimension of transcendence. As the Prophet
proclaims and emphasizes the Word of God which has come to
him, so Jesus is the One who has come, who proclaims the Rule
of God, and invites men to communion with God. When He,
Jesus, goes into the house of Zacchaeus, the tax-gatherer, that
day the promised Messianic salvation has come to that house. ^
When He shows Himself the Friend of publicans and sinners,
He proves that He is the Good Shepherd, who, in His loving
compassion, seeks the lost sheep of the House of Israel. ^ When,
in the course of bringing in the Rule of God He is met by the
resistance of the usurping masters of the vineyard, He experi-
ences this as "the Son", whom the Father sends, as previously
He had sent His servants. 3 Thus the witness of Jesus to Himself
is the witness to His Messianic dignity, to the Messianic
presence of God in Him. Jesus Himself bears witness to Himself
— without actually saying so, in words — as the Immanuel
of prophecy, and all His acts — according to the unimpeach-
able witness of a scholar who is not an orthodox Christian
believer — are "acts of the Messianic self-consciousness of
Jesus". 4

But His disciples, who not only knew His life and His work,
but had also experienced His death on the Cross and His
Resurrection, could proclaim His Messianic authority and His
saving significance with greater certainty and clearness than
He Himself could, or ought to do. 5 This is the reason for the
relative difference between the Christological message of the
Apostles, and the witness of Jesus to Himself. Only gradually
does the whole fullness of the knowledge of Christ develop in
the Primitive Church and in the Apostolic teaching. But one
point, and that the central one, was clear from the very outset,
and was simply expanded in detail later on: He is the Lord, to
whom prayer is offered: "Come, Lord Jesus", Marantha.
Thus His dignity is not that of a creature, but it is that of the
Holy, who stands "over against" His whole creation. These
first Christians, who gave Him the title "Lord", were no
polytheists ; that is, they were not people to whom it would be
easy to ascribe divine dignity to any human being. They were
Jews, men who had recited the Jewish Creed every day of their
lives, from their early childhood; "Hear! O Israel! the Lord

' Luke 19: 9. ^ Matt. i8: 12; Luke 19: 10. 3 Matt. 21: 37.

4 Albert Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu Forschung, p. 415.

5 The view that there is a contrast between the "Synoptic" and the "Pauline-
Johannine" Gospel can only be maintained so long as one does not perceive
that the Message of Jesus Himself is disguised "Messianism".

211

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

our God is One Lord"/ — ^Jews, for whom there were no demi-
gods, no transitional beings between the creation and God.
When they addressed Jesus as "Lord" in their prayers, they
intended to give Him the dignity of the One God. In the
presence of this one phrase or word. Mar an (Lord), (which in
its Aramaic form was current in the very early days of the
Jewish-Christian Church, and was adopted by the Greek-
speaking Church as part of the primitive Christian liturgy), all
the theoretical views of a contradiction between a "Christo-
logical" and a "non-Christological" Primitive Church, between
Paul and the first Christian community, or between the
Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth Gospel, must disappear. As
Jesus, according to the oldest historical testimony, knew that
He was the Messianic Lord, so, still more, did the witnesses of
His Resurrection know it. The progress, the development of
the ideas about the nature and the significance of this dignity
of Christ as Lord, takes place within this common original
confession of faith, and does not alter anything in its original
content. The most primitive Christian Faith of the Early
Church and the developed Chrlstology of Paul and John is one
in the confession: "Jesus is the divine Lord." The simple
prayer "Maranatha" and the confession "Christ is Lord",
raise the problem of the Trinity. This Jesus is the Lord who is
to be invoked as God ; that is one side of the problem. But there
is only one Lord to be invoked as God, the Lord who has
created heaven and earth ; that is the other side of the question.
The Son is God, of equal dignity with the Father; there is only
one God.

The first question which forces itself upon our minds is this :
What is the relation between the Son whom we invoke as
Lord, with the Father whom we invoke as Lord? Even the
Apostles were aware of this question. In different ways they
tried to answer it, and their answers — as primitive testimonies
to the Christian Faith and experience of the Early Church — are
of decisive importance. But none of their doctrinal formulas is
the truth itself. Paul mainly emphasizes the significance of the
work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Lord, to whom the Highest
Name of God Himself is given. 2 He is the "Son of His love",
through whom we are "delivered from the power of darkness"
and "translated into the Kingdom of His dear Son". 3 He is the
revelation of that "righteousness", which is yet so generous
and gracious, which makes an end of the righteousness of the

' Deut. 6: 4. » Phil. 2:9. 3 Col. i: 13.

212

THE TRIUNE GOD

Law.' It is He in whom we receive the love of God as a gift,^
who reconciles and redeems us, 3 who, as the Head, unites us
with Himself in one Body,4 who breaks the power of sin, of the
law and of death, 5 who gives us a share in eternal life,^ and who
sheds abroad in our hearts the Holy Spirit as the first-fruits
and the pledge of eternal life. 7 It is He who Himself is the true
Image of God, who transforms us into this image of God.^ We
must understand the Christology of Paul from the point of
view of the work of Christ, as something which, essentially, can
only be expressed in verbs, not in nouns, in historical, and not
in metaphysical terms.

And yet there are some passages in Paul's Letters which
explicitly point beyond that which is given in history — ^while
the others only do it implicitly — passages which reveal the
eternal background of the story of Jesus. He whom we know in
the form of a servant, obedient unto God, of a human being in
sinful flesh, has "taken on Himself" this "form of a servant".
"Before" He did this He was "in divine form", which belonged
to Him by right of His nature. 9 In Him "dwelleth all the fulness
of the Godhead bodily ".i° For our sakes He became "poor",
although He was "rich", with the wealth of God.'^ He is the
"image of the invisible God",i2 "through whom are all things,
and we through Him".i3 Thus He is the One in whom all things,
things in heaven and things on earths have been created —
"for all things have been created through Him and unto Him".

While Paul's thoughts do not move for long at this height of
transcendence, but constantly return to the historic centre, the
saving work of this Christ, in "John" that meta-historical
aspect of the Person of Christ is more fully developed, yet with-
out ever losing the relation with the historical work of Christ.
Jesus is above all the Revealer, in whom "the Word" through
whom all has been created "became flesh". ' 5 He shares the full
Divine Godhead ;i6 He possesses explicitly that predicate of
deity which we called "His own glory": He has "life in Him-
self".'? Therefore He and the Father are one, and He that seeth
Him seeth the Father.'^ He therefore is Himself the Truth, the
Life, the Resurrection. '9 From all eternity He has a share in the

• Rom. 3: 21. » Rom. 8: 32. 3 2 Cor. 5: 19.

4 Eph. 4: 15. 5 Rom. 8: 2. * Rom. 16: 23.
7 Rom. 8: 23; 2 Cor. i: 22. » Rom. 8: 29; 2 Cor. 3: i.

9 Phil. 2:6. 'o Col. 2: 9. " 2 Cor. 8: 9.

" Col. i: 15. >3 I Cor. 8: 6. '4 Col. 1: 16.

'5 John i: 14. '^ John 1:2. n John 5: 26.

'8 John 14: 9. >9 John 11: 25; 14: 6.

213

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

glory of the Father ;i hence, in contrast to all of us, He is the
One who is "from above", ^ who has come to us "from the
bosom of the Father" ;3 therefore, in contrast to all those who
come to sonship through Him, He is the only begotten Son4 —
Paul, meaning the same thing, calls Him God's "own" Son. 5

All these expressions clearly mean the same thing: Jesus
Christ, as the Son of God, is deos, God. He has a share in the
divine Being, He stands over against us who are creatures as
the One who is Uncreated, ^ who has Himself shared in the Act
of Creation. 7 He shares in that Life and that Glory, in which
we only participate in the eternal life of God through Him, in
the eternal redeeming, reconciling, new-creating Love and
Holiness of God.^ It is He through whom God imparts to us
this life; He is the Mediator of the divine self-communication,
in its twofold sense of revelation and salvation, truth and
grace, light and life.

In all these varied expressions, reflecting the thought-world
from which they come, the Apostles are only trying to say one
thing; but if this "one" thing is to be said at all, it has to be
said in many ways; this is what they mean: that "the Son" is
He in whom God discloses Himself to man, as the Holy One,
and as Love, as the Holy, Merciful Father. The Son is the
revelation of the Father ; when we call upon Jesus as Lord we
call upon Him who from eternity is Lord alone, whom, however,
we only know in Jesus as He wills to be known, and whom we
possess as He wills to give Himself to us.

(3)
The dynamic element in the formation of the doctrine of the
Trinity is the Son. The conflict rages round the question of His
divinity. The problem of the "Third Person", of the Holy
Spirit, has been much less acute, and has caused far less up-
heaval within the Church. This corresponds to the fact that the
earliest creed of the Church only referred to the Son. 9 The
point at issue was this: that in the Son, and in Him alone, we
have the Father, and that through the Son — and only through
Him — we receive the Holy Spirit; thus that only from the
standpoint of the Son do we know the Father and share in the
hfe of the Spirit. If this central point is right, then everything

' John 17 : 5. 2 John 3: 31; 8: 23. 3 John i: 18.

4 John i: 18. 5 Rom. 8: 32. * John 17: 5.

7 Col. i: 16. 8 John 17: 24.

9 Cf. Cullmann, Die ersten Christlichen Glaubensbekenntnisse, 1943.

214

THE TRIUNE GOD

else is right. Only he who has the Son has the Father; only the
Spirit who witnesses to the Son is the Holy Spirit. ' Hence, it is
not at all surprising that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit — as
part of the doctrine of the Trinity — should be far less prominent
than that of the Son. Even outside the Christian Church,
indeed, men speak of God as "Father", and of the Spirit of God.
The specifically Christian element was the new knowledge of
the Father given through Jesus, the Son of God, and the life in
the Holy Spirit mediated through the Son. To think aright
about "the. Son" meant that, in essentials, men also knew how
to think of the Father and the Spirit.

In itself, however, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is just as
important as that of the Son, and the witness of the New Testa-
ment to the Spirit is as rich as that to the Son. But whereas
faith in Jesus is proclaimed as a creed, witness is borne to the
Holy Spirit as an experimental reality. For the Holy Spirit,
contrasted with the historical revelation, is the inward revela-
tion, and the personal Presence of God Himself. Belief in the
Son means that God has intervened in history, revealing, recon-
ciling. Belief in the Holy Spirit means : this historical revelation
of God is the source of the inward personal presence of God,
through which we, as individual believers, and as a community,
participate in the life-renewing power of God, and indeed only
in this way does the historical revelation become truth for us.
The New Testament testimony to the Holy Spirit is therefore
plainly directed towards Christ. The Holy Spirit teaches us to
understand Him, His truth and His work;^ through Him the
Love of Christ becomes our portion and our possession, 3 indeed,
through the Holy Spirit Christ Himself, as "Christ-for-us",
becomes "Christ-in-us".4 The self-communication of God is not
only accomplished in the Historical and the Objective; He seeks
us, our very self, our heart. The self-communication of God
wills our sanctification,5 the self-communication of the God who
is love sets us within His love,^ and pours His love into our
hearts.1 Sanctification and communion in love^ — this is the
work of the Holy Spirit, the self-communication of God, whose
nature is Holiness and Love. The Spirit who dwells within us
is indeed the Spirit of God, and what He effects can therefore
be nothing less than the manifestation of the life which is
His own. To have the Holy Spirit does not mean possessing

» I John 2: 23, 21. * John 16: 14 ff. 3 Rom. 8: 15, 23.

4 Gal. 2; 20; 4: 19; Col. 1 : 27. 5 i Pet. i : 15.

' Col. i: 13. 7 Rom. 5:5. ^ Eph. 2: 22; i Peter i: 2.

215

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

"something", but "Himself", and in Him we have eternal
life.^

Hence there can be no question whether the Holy Spirit also
is Person ; in the New Testament such a question cannot arise ;
it would indeed be tantamount to asking whether God Himself
were Person. The misunderstanding which lies behind such a
question may perhaps be explained by the fact that in some
passages in the New Testament, especially in the Acts of the
Apostles, certain manifestations of the Holy Spirit, and the
Holy Spirit Himself, are not clearly distinguished; thus the
"gifts" of the Holy Spirit, which are really "something" and
not Himself, are equated with Himself.^ This somewhat "neu-
tral" way of speaking of the Holy Spirit is, however, not that
of the Pauline and Johannine testimony, but must be regarded
as belonging to a more primitive level. The mighty reality of the
Holy Spirit in the Primitive Church was so overwhelming that
the doctrine of the Spirit only gradually became clear. But in the
writings of the great teachers of the Primitive Church, in Paul
and John, there is no doubt at all about the personal character
of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, John does not shrink from placing
this personality on a level with the psycho-physical personal
reality of the Lord as a parallel in the form of the Paraclete. 3
This, however, is only intended to emphasize the truth — which
is the common and decisive element in the whole of the witness
of the Primitive Church : that the Holy Spirit is God Himself, is
therefore, like God Himself, Subject, not "something"; He is
the Giver, not only a gift; a personality, who speaks, creates,
judges, guides, and plans. The Spirit bears witness, 4 teaches, 5
punishes,^ works,? imparts, ^ wills, 9 prays, J" He can be blas-
phemed," He can be grieved. '^ He sighs in and with the soul in
prayer; He represents us. The fact that He is "given to us" is
no more difficult to believe than that the Son has been "given
for us". The fact that He is "sent" is exactly paralleled by the
fact that the Son has been "sent". Indeed, Paul seems to go
even further, and to identify the Spirit with Christ: "The Lord
is the Spirit. "^3 But this does not mean that the difference be-
tween the historically objective and the inwardly subjective
form of the revelation has been eliminated; what it means is
this: that in so far as Jesus Christ is in us He is so in the way

' Rom. 8: lo ff. ' Cf. Acts 4: 31; 8: 39; 10: 44; 19: 2 ff.

3 John 14: 16, 26; 16: 7. 4 Rom. 8: 16. 5 Rev. 2: 7, etc.

' I Cor. 12: II. 7 John 16: 8. * i Cor. 12: 11.

9 I Cor. 12: II. '" Rom. 8: 26. " Matt. 12: 31.

»2 Eph. 4: 30. '3 2 Cor. 3: 17-18.

216

THE TRIUNE GOD

in which the Holy Spirit is within us. Taken in isolation, this
passage is as easy to misunderstand as — on the other hand —
it is to speak of the Paraclete as the "representative" of Jesus
Christ.

(4)
This, then, is the Biblical evidence — not for the Trinity, but
evidence which points in the direction of the doctrine of the
Trinity. The God who communicates Himself, the God of
Holiness and Love, makes Himself known to us in this three-
fold Name — Father, Son, and Spirit. These three Names stand,
as designations for God as He communicates Himself, in this
definite, irrevocable order: from the Father through the Son to
the Spirit. The theology of the Early Church, as we shall see,
did not, it is true, alter this order, but since it had very little
idea that this order "mattered", its teaching suggests three
"persons", side by side; this had a disastrous effect upon the
doctrine of God.' To a certain extent, of course, it is true that
there are several passages in the New Testament where the
"triad" of names is used in such a way that they seem to be
"side by side", passages where the three Names — Father, Son,
Spirit — evidently are placed alongside of one another con-
sciously and deliberately as in a formulated Creed ;i but the
Biblical doctrine does not go further than this. The idea of a
"Triune God" does not form part of the witness and message of
Primitive Christianity. Through the Biblical evidence, how-
ever, the Trinitarian problem for theological reflection was
raised in such a way that it could not be evaded. This brings us
to the theological, dogmatic task of the doctrine of the Trinity.
In order to understand the seriousness of this task, and the
passion which theological controversy about the doctrine of the
Trinity aroused, that is, to understand what, and how much,
was at stake in this conflict, we must not stop short at the
Biblical factual evidence, but we must go further and enquire
into the ground for this evidence. From our previous enquiry
we may thus sum up the results of the Biblical evidence : only
through the Son do we have the Father; only through the Son
do we have the Spirit ; only through the Spirit do we have the
Son. But in all the One God reveals and gives Himself to us.

In Jesus Christ the Holy and Merciful God meets us : reveal-
ing, reconcihng, redeeming; through the Holy Spirit, all that
He has given in historical events is translated into our inward

> Matt. 28: 19; 2 Cor. 13: 13; i Cor. 12: 4-6; i Pet. i: 2.
217

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

experience, which He creates within us. Why does this article
of faith include — in the fullest sense of the word — the con-
fession of the divinity of Christ ? Why must we understand the
phrase "God was in Christ"^ in this way and in no other? Two
lines of thought are at our disposal, and the evidence of the
Scriptures points equally to both: the "theological" line — the
understanding of the reconciling revelation from the Nature of
God — and the "anthropological" line — the understanding of the
reconciling revelation from the situation of man "without God,
and without life"; in other words, there is the "theocratic"
line of thought, and the line of soteriology.

(i) God is the Holy Lord, and God ts self-giving Love.

(a) God, as the Lord, wills to rule over us. Therefore He wills to
put an end to our rebellion, to sin. This is not accomplished by
the Law of God; the Law simply brings sin to a head, without
being able to overcome it. But even the prophetic word of
promise is not able to do this; it merely promises, it does not
usher in the Kingdom of God. It promises the Coming of God
in the Person of the Messiah, in order to establish the Rule of
God. This Promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. His Coming is
not merely a Word from God — as it came to the Prophets — ^but
it is God's coming in His own Personal Presence. In Him the
Holy One Himself is present and creates obedience to Himself,
since He — through the Holy Spirit — takes possession of the
heart of man. He Himself, the Holy One, is personally present.

(b) God, who is Love, wills to give Himself to us — that is. He
wills to give us this love, which is Himself. He does not do this
through His Law; for there He demands love. Nor does He do
this through His prophetic Word; for there He promises His
love. He does this in His own Presence, as the promised Im-
manuel, "God-with-us". God's merciful love only lays hold of
us realiter as His loving Presence in the Person of Him who
really stoops down to sinners, and really gives Himself to death
for us. The Cross of Jesus is the culmination of this process of
"coming down",^ of the infinitely gracious coming of the loving
God in His own personal presence. When this love — which is
God's own love — lays hold of us, it destroys our pride, and
banishes our fear, and — through the Holy Spirit — we are in-
wardly "apprehended" by God, and filled with His Love. He
Himself who is Love, in His personal presence, achieves this
miracle.

(ii) Our human situation is that of the creature who has become

' 2 Cor. 5: 19. * Exod. 3: 8,

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THE TRIUNE GOD

sinful. Through sin we are in a state of self-deception or of blind-
ness to truth; and through sin we are in isolation, due to the fact
that we are separated from God by His wrath.

(a) As those who are deceived, we cannot perceive God's
truth by our own efforts. We can perceive the truth of God only
in the fact that He gives Himself to us to be known. This truth
of God, however, is Himself, His personal mystery. This per-
sonal mystery cannot disclose to us any doctrine; no "Word-
about-Him", not even a prophetic word, can give this to us. It
can only be given to us through the fact that He, the Truth,
Himself gives Himself to us, as Person, as He Himself is Person.

[b] Since we are in a state of sin and guilt, we cannot have
communion with God. We cannot of ourselves bridge the gulf
between ourselves and God, created by the wrath of God, our
sinful will, and our bad conscience. We cannot of ourselves come
to God. If He is to be with us, then He must Himself come to us,
to us in our lost condition, into the wrath and curse which
separate us from God, and so He must establish communion
with us. Just as certainly as it is only God's personal presence
which discloses to us the secret of His Person, so, too, it is only
the fact that God gives Himself to us which enables us to have
communion with Him. Only if it be true that "God" — Himself
— "was in Christ", is it true that He has "reconciled us to Him-
self". Only when that becomes true to us are we reconciled; it is
only the fact that He Himself, in His forgiving Love, comes to
us personally, that enables us to have genuine communion with
Him.

Now let us sum up: Only the true personal presence of God,
only the Incarnation of the Word, and the coming "in the form
of a servant" of Him who was in divine form, can establish the
rule of the Holy Lord, and create communion with Him who is
love; only God truly present. Himself in Person, can truly
reveal God to us, and truly reconcile us to Him. The revelation
in the "Word-about-Him" is not able to do this. The Prophet
as person is not the presence of God, and the Prophetic Word is
not the presence of God in person. Only the identity of the
Revealer with that which is revealed, of the "Bearer" with that
which He "bears", can do this. Neither the Prophet nor His
word are God Himself speaking and acting. The prophetic
Word is revelation, it is true, but it is an incomplete, provi-
sional revelation. Only the personal Presence of God, speaking
and acting, is the perfect revelation and reconciliation. And
this has taken place in Jesus Christ. "God was in Christ recon-

219

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

ciling the world unto Himself. "^ "The Word became flesh, and
we saw His glory — full of grace and truth."

These statements do not say "something" — they say all
there is to be said about the Christian Message as a whole. The
whole point is the True God, whose Nature is Holiness and Love,
and that true revelation and reconciliation which is nothing less
than the self-communication of the True God. What matters is
the reality of this self-communication, which is only true reality
if it is the Presence of God in Person. Only in this self -communi-
cation, which is the personal self-manifestation of the presence
of God, do we perceive what it means that God is Holy and that
He is self -giving Love. All that we have been saying in the last
two chapters about the Nature of the God who makes His
Name known to us is the "ratio essendi" of the Christian revela-
tion— and reconciliation. But this revelation itself is the "ratio
cognoscendi" of that knowledge.

(5)

This unity of the nature and the revelation of God is what is
meant by the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine itself, how-
ever, developed out of the process of defending the truth
against certain doctrines which would eventually have destroyed
this unity of the Nature and the Revelation of God. Here the
Church had to fight for her existence tooth and nail, for the
question was one of life and death; the whole Gospel was at
stake. Whether the doctrine which finally emerged from these
conflicts was really in accordance with the truth it desired to
defend, is another question.

In the following pages we shall be discussing this question.
I shall try to show that we can only answer it in the affirmative
in a very restricted sense, and why this is so.

(i) Very early the Christian Church had fixed the main con-
tent of its faith in a threefold "triadic" baptismal formula as a
kind of creed. The naive way in which the three Names were
placed alongside of one another was bound to meet with opposi-
tion on the part of those who realized the all-importance of the
Unity of God. In a polytheistic world the preservation of the
Divine Unity was a concern of paramount importance. The
danger of conceiving the three Names as a little Christian
Pantheon was not remote. Hence, before everything else, the
truth had to be stressed that — beyond all doubt — there is only
One God. This emphasis on the Divine Unity, however, took

' 2 Cor. 5: 19.
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THE TRIUNE GOD

such a form that it endangered the reahty of the revelation
itself; this danger was present in both forms of Monarchianism.
The first of these forms — that known as "Dynamic" Monarch-
ianism— we may describe briefly as the free-thinking, Uni-
tarian theology of the Early Church. Jesus Christ is not truly
God, but — in spite of the Virgin Birth, which is not attacked' —
merely a human being inspired by God and filled with His
Spirit, who, because of His specially high degree of obedience
to God, was adopted by God as His Son, either at His Baptism
or after His Resurrection. The Revealer is different from that
which is revealed ; fundamentally, here we are still on the plane
of the Old Covenant.

In the second form of Monarchianism, known as "Modalism",
the situation is different. Here both elements of truth are
maintained; the unity of God and the divinity of Christ; but
here, too, the identity of the Revealer with that which is re-
vealed is lost. The "unicus Deus" has incarnated itself in Mary,
and as such is called "Son". Thus there has only been a Son
since the Incarnation, but this "Son" is truly God. This makes
Christ a kind of theophany, and God the Father Himself suffers
the pangs of death. Whether this was really the doctrine held
by the Sabellians, or whether it is merely a caricature created
by the theologians who triumphed over them, cannot now be
determined with any precision. The provenance of this Modalism
from Asia Minor, however, rather suggests that here was a type
of doctrine which was still close to the thought of the New
Testament, but was already being misunderstood by the
Church, and was therefore distorted, and — in this form-
rightly contested. But if the presentation of the antagonists be
correct, then certainly this doctrine, which denied the eternity
of the Son — even though it does not deny His divinity —
should be attacked with the utmost vigour.

(ii) The Logos doctrine was now utilized as a weapon against
this mistaken effort to preserve the Divine Unity. The Son is
identified with the Logos, and the latter is no longer regarded
as the Impersonal Divine Wisdom, but as an hypostasis, as
something which has independent being. This defended the
super-historical character of the Revealer over against Modal-
ism, and His divinity over against Adoptionism. Now the
question is: What is the relation of the Son as Logos to the

' Neither Paul of Samosata nor Arius, these two extreme opponents of the
doctrine of the Church, denied the Virgin Birth. (Cf. Loofs, Dogniengeschichtc,
pp. 218 and 236.) This shows how little the doctrine of the Virgin Birth is able
to protect the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ.

221

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Father? Immediately a new form of error appeared: Sub-
ordinationism.

The Logos is pre-existent, it is true, but is not eternal. The
Logos — not the historic God-Man — the Eternal Son of God
who has not yet become Man, is thus a divinity, who is at the
same time a creature. This Logos conception of Arianism
brought Christian doctrine into the sphere of polytheistic
mythology. This constituted an attack on the first article of the
Biblical creed, namely, that there is no intermediate being
between God and His creatures. This doctrinal error therefore
had to be rejected still more decidedly than the others, and
excluded from the doctrine of the Church as "arch-heresy".

(iii) Thus after a conflict against heresy, lasting two hundred
years, in which the Church had defended the positions of the
full divinity of Christ, and the unity of God, she herself had to
make the effort to express the central mystery of the Christian
Faith in doctrinal form; so she created the doctrine of the
Trinity. At first, however, this was not so much the actual
doctrine of the Trinity as a clearly expressed doctrine of the
Divinity of the Son, as expressed in the Nicene Creed: "Christ,
the ixovoyevT]? vlog, begotten of His Father before all worlds.
Light of Light, true God of True God, begotten not made, of
one substance with the Father." It was not until the Athana-
sian Creed was formulated a century later that the final step
was taken, and the standard formula for the Triune God was
formulated (at least for the West) in the following terms:

Deum in Trinitate et Trinitatem in Uniiate veneremur, neque
confundentes personas neque substantiam separantes.
Henceforward this was the orthodox ecclesiastical Idea of God
of the Roman Catholic Church, which was also adopted by the
Churches of the Reformation.

(6)
Now, we may ask, is this formula of the Trinity, of the "tres
personae" and the "una substantia", really in accordance with
the centre of the message of revelation, the unity of God's
Nature and His Revelation ? So much is certain : every formu-
lation of the mystery which either removes or attacks the iden-
tity of the the Revealer and that which is revealed — revelation
and the Nature of God — endangers the decisive message of the
Bible. If God Himself did not become man in Jesus Christ, then
His Revelation is not revelation, and His Atonement is not
atonement. "Nothing created can unite the creature with God"

222

THE TRIUNE GOD

(Athanasius).' "God alone can unite the creature with God."
"No one could make us the children of God save He who is the
true and essential Son of the Father" (Athanasius).^ The
Reconciler must be God Himself, "because by no other means
than that of an eternal Person could we be rescued from our
terrible fall into sin and eternal death; such a Person alone
could have power over sin and death, to expiate our sin, and to
give us instead righteousness and eternal life, no angel or
creature could do this, but it must be done by God Himself"
(Luther). 3 The "event" of revelation and reconciliation, both
understood in the sense of complete reality, means : the breaking
through of the creaturely barrier which irrevocably separates
God and the creature, the "entrance-into-history" of Him who
stands above all history. If Jesus really is the Revealer and the
Reconciler, then in Him we meet God Himself. On the other
hand, in so far as in Jesus Christ God Himself is present and
deals with us in His form of Being as Revealer, He differs from
Him who is Revealed. Jesus is God, He is not a «^tAos- audpco-nos,
a mere human being who is endowed with the Spirit of God. He
is the True God, not a created "God". But as the revealing Son
He is different from the revealed Father. Thus we are forced
to consider the formulas of the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet
there are weighty considerations which raise misgivings about
them.

(i) In the BibHcal testimony to Jesus Christ the historical
revelation occupies the dominant position in the centre of
interest. The main concern is with the work of Christ, with that
which happens through Him for us and to us. We must not
allow our gaze to move away from this historical centre to look
at the realm of transcendence; or rather, from the historical
centre we can better see into the realm of the Transcendent.
This historical centre, this work of revelation and reconcilia-
tion, which takes place in the Person of Jesus, has a background
of eternity, apart from which it is not what it is. Christ's
Origin is an integral part of His Nature. Belief in His pre-
existence or eternity forms part of our whole belief in Him who
is the Revealer and the Reconciler. But this article of faith
must always be based on the historical centre, and must never
be severed from it. Through the Spirit we see the Son as the
Son of the Father, and through the Son we see the Father as
the Father of the Son, and as Our Father. The three Names do
not stand alongside of one another but after one another. The

» C, Ar., II, 69. ' C. Ar., I, 39. 3 W.A., 21, 51.

223

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

background can only be seen and understood as the back-
ground to this foreground.

From the time of Origen's doctrine of the Logos, however,
speculation was rife in the sphere of theology; thus men's
interest was deflected from the historical centre to the eternal
background, and then severed from it. People then began to
speculate about the transcendent relation of the Three Persons
of the Trinity within the Trinity; they were set alongside of
one another, and the fact that there was an order in the Three
Persons was forgotten. The transcendent relation of "Three
Persons" became the dominant theme, the real subject of
theological interest. The result of this placing of the "Three
Persons" "side by side", so to speak, was the formula of the
classical doctrine of the Trinity.

(ii) Not all the theologians of the Church, however, devoted
their attention to metaphysical speculation. In the Church
there was another line of religious and doctrinal tradition in
which the main concern of the Bible, that of the history of
salvation, was maintained. This tradition arose in Asia Minor,
and by way of Ignatius to Irenaeus, and from Irenaeus to
Marcellus, represented a school of thought with which Atha-
nasius had much sympathy. ^ He protected Marcellus when
others were eager to label him a Sabellian and a heretic. Typical
of this kind of theology is the absence of philosophical formulas
derived from the Logos doctrine of the Apologists and of
Origen; further, another characteristic was the tenacious hold
on the historical centre, and the "order" resulting from that of
Spirit, Son and Father: through the Spirit the Son, through the
Son the Father; finally the renunciation of the attempt to
make any more exact definition of the transcendental relations
within the Trinity, the refusal to formulate a doctrine of the
"Three divine Persons". This tradition of "saving history" —
Irenaeus — shows itself here — as at other points — as one that is
purer than the more or less classical doctrine of Origen, and has
preserved more fully than the latter the connexion with the
Biblical kerygma.

(iii) This does not mean that the doctrine of an "economic"
Trinity is played off against that of an "immanent" doctrine.
We have no desire to lay exclusive emphasis upon the historical
as such, and to ignore the background of eternity. We would
repeat: the Origin of Christ is an integral part of His Nature.

' Cf. Loofs, Dogmengeschichte, pp. 139-51, etc., and the article on Marcellus
in PRE, 3, 12, pp. 259 ff.

224

THE TRIUNE GOD

Only when we know that He has come to us from "the bosom
of the Father", from the eternal mystery of God, from the
realm of Transcendence, do we know who He is and what He
does. But what matters is not whence He comes, but the move-
ment from the one sphere to the other. We must see this move-
ment, in order to understand the gracious act of "stooping-
down" to man, and thus the revealing and reconciling self-
communication of God. Therefore our understanding likewise
must trace this movement back to its starting-point, and come
to the belief in the pre-existence and transcendent nature of
Christ and thus to confess Him as the Eternal Son. But this
article of faith should be the final term in this process. But if
this be the case, to make the mutual relation of the Three
Persons within the Trinity a subject of theological discussion
becomes impossible; the question is of no interest to us; indeed,
it is not allowable, for to do so means, as it were, placing the
Three Names as Three Persons "side by side", and thus creating
a speculative truth, which is really an illusion.

(iv) But when we speak of the "Persons of the Trinity" as if
they were "in a certain order" , we do not mean an historical
order. This was the error of the Sabellians — at least, so it seems
if the polemical views of the orthodox teachers of the Church
are correct. However that may be, we mean the "order" which
is implied in the movement of the divine self-communication,
which therefore has no other aim than to express this one,
central truth: Jesus Christ is God in His revelation, God in His
Self -communication.

If we understand it thus, then one point becomes clear
which is only obscurely expressed in the classical doctrine. The
revelation of God is truly His self-communication. Jesus Christ
is truly the Personal Presence of God. He who reveals to us the
True God, is indeed wholly God, but this revelation does not
exhaust the whole mystery of God. In saying this we must refer
to a truth which we mentioned at the very beginning, the truth
of the dialectic which lies in the nature of revelation itself,
namely, that the revelation does not remove the mystery of
God; on the contrary, the revelation deepens the mystery of
God. The revelation issues from the mystery of God; it reveals
to us the heart of God. But all that can be said about God, all
that the Son can disclose to us of the Nature of God, still leaves
a residue of mystery: something which can never be said;
something unfathomably mysterious. Even the revealed God
remains a hidden God, and He wills to be worshipped as the one

225

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

who is Hidden and Unfathomable. "God dwells in Light un-
approachable"— this applies not only to the time before, but to
the time after, the revelation through Christ, and in spite of it.
Pater est fons totius Trinitatis. The Mystery of God stands at
the beginning and at the end of revelation.

(v) It was never the intention of the original witnesses to
Christ in the New Testament to set before us an intellectual
problem — that of the Three Divine Persons — and then to tell
us silently to worship this mystery of the "Three-in-One".
There is no trace of such an idea in the New Testament. This
'"mysierium logicum" , the fact that God is Three and yet One,
lies wholly outside the message of the Bible. It is a mystery
which the Church places before the faithful in her theology, by
which she hampers and hinders their faith with a heteronomy
which is in harmony, it is true, with a false claim to authority,
but which has no connexion with the message of Jesus and
His Apostles. No Apostle would have dreamt of thinking that
there are the Three Divine Persons, whose mutual relations and
paradoxical unity are beyond our understanding. No "mys-
terium logicum", no intellectual paradox, no antinomy of
Trinity and Unity, has any place in their testimony, but only
the "mysterium majestatis et caritaiis" : namely, that the Lord
God for our sakes became man and endured the Cross. The
mystery of the Trinity, proclaimed by the Church, and en-
shrined in her Liturgy, from the fifth or sixth century onwards,
is a pseudo-mystery, which sprang out of an aberration of
theological thought from the lines laid down in the Bible, and
not from the Biblical doctrine itself. At the beginning of this
chapter we said that the doctrine of the Trinity was a theo-
logical doctrine formulated in order to protect and preserve the
centre of the Biblical message, but it was never meant to be
the kerygma itself. In so far as the Church has made it part of
its kerygma, it has given a false direction to faith. This was what
the Reformers meant when they warned people against in-
dulging in Trinitarian speculations, and urged them to return
to the simplicity of the Bible. Hoc est Christum cognoscere, bene-
ficia ejus cognoscere. Thought of this kind is in harmony with
the history of salvation; it is loyal to the centre of Christian
thought, and does not attempt to turn the background of this
centre into the religious foreground.

(vi) This view, however, means that we must give up the
endeavour to construct a doctrine of the relation between the
"Trinitarian Persons". As soon as we try to do this — an effort

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THE TRIUNE GOD

which reason is ever urging us to make, we step out of the
Bibhcal Hne of "saving history" and place the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit "side by side". The terms used in the
Athanasian Creed, and from this source incorporated into the
traditional doctrine of the Trinity taught by the Church, "una
substantia, ires personae" , must sound strange to us from the
outset. What room is there for the idea of "substantia" in
Christian theology? Indeed, it represents that intellectual
aberration which substitutes speculative and impersonal think-
ing for the line of thought controlled by revelation ; thus "God"
now becomes a neutral "ens" , "the Absolute", instead of God
who is "Lord" of heaven and earth. The idea of "substantia" of
the Athanasian Creed helped to foster the unfortunate specula-
tive aberrations of mediaeval theology.

But even the idea of "Three Persons" is to be regarded with
misgiving. It is indeed impossible to understand it otherwise
than in a tri-theistic sense, however hard we may try to guard
against this intei:pretation. To analyse the truth of revelation,
that the Lord God reveals Himself to us as the Father through
the KvpLog ;^tcrTos-, the Son, as a "tri-unity" of "persons" is a
temptation for the intellect, to which we ought not to give
way, but which we ought to resist — just as we ought to resist
the temptation to infer that the eternal divine election implies
an equally eternal divine rejection. ^ We have the Father
through the Son, in the Son; but we do not have the Father
alongside of the Son, and the Son alongside of the Father. We
have the Son through the Spirit, in the Spirit; but we ought not
to have the Spirit alongside of the Son, and the Son alongside
of the Spirit. This rightful attitude of reverent silence before
the mystery of God is not served by inventing, by the use of
concepts of this kind, a "mysterium logicum" , but rather by
renouncing the attempt to penetrate into a sphere which is too
high for us. and in which our thinking can only lead to dan-
gerous illusions.

(7)
On the other hand, from what has just been said, we may
draw two conclusions of the utmost importance. The first
comes from the statement that the Revealer and Him who is
revealed are one. God the Father is really He who reveals
Himself in Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ, in His Holy and
Merciful authority, speaks to us as "I", the Holy and Merciful

» Cf. Chap. 23 below.
227

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

God Himself is really speaking to us. God is the One who reveals
Himself in Jesus Christ as the God for us. The love of Jesus is
really the love of God. Thus God is not merely the Loving One
in His relation to us, but in Himself He is Love. He is not only
loving in relation to the world which He has created; He did
not begin to love "only when there was a world", but He loves
"from before the foundation of the world",' "from all eternity" ;
He "is Love ".2 This highest and most daring word of the New
Testament, and of human speech as a whole, is only possible if
the love of God is really "before the foundation of the world",
if therefore God is in Himself the One who loves.

Only when we see this do we perceive that the distinction
between God and the world — but not the separation — is an
absolute one; this means, however, that only now has the
possibility of Pantheism been for ever eliminated. God is only
the absolute Lord of the world if He is wholly independent of
it; thus if it is wholly a work of His freedom. But He is only
wholly independent of it if He is what He is "from before all
worlds", and not merely "since" the world began, and, through
the world. Only if, in Himself, from all eternity, God is the
Loving One, no world is needed for Him to be the Loving One.
On the contrary, the world as creation is the work of His Love.
Only when this statement is fully accepted is that other finally
denied, to which our natural thinking continually urges us;
namely, that there is a necessary correlation between God and
the world, so that, since we cannot conceive the world without
God, we cannot conceive God apart from the world. God and
the world are not in the relationship of correlation like left and
right. The relation between God and the world is one-sided : the
world is derived from God, through God; He is its Source. The
world is determined by God; God is not determined by the
world. This statement, however, is only true if it be true that,
apart from the world, God is also the One who loves, who loves
"before all worlds". From all Eternity He loves His Son, and
therefore through His Son He creates the world.

Secondly, this truth alone maintains the distinction between
Eros and Agape. Agape is the love which is not determined by
its object, but wholly by the loving subject, the love which is
not kindled by something diligihile, but which creates that
which is diligihile for itself. Only of God Himself is love from
all eternity, is His love really Agape, and not Eros. The world
did not come into being because God felt a need for fellowship

> Eph. 1:4. * John 4: 8-16.

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THE TRIUNE GOD

or completion, but it arose wholly out of His own incompre-
hensible will to create communion. God does not need a world;
He wills it, and He wills it because He wills to give Himself.
The being of the world and its manner of existence is not the
ground, but the work of His love. This applies primarily to the
creature fresh from God's creating hands, not to the creature
perverted and defaced by sin. But God's freely-creating, freely-
electing love reveals its highest glory when it confronts the
sinful creature, which has lost every element of attractiveness,
and is indeed far from being diligihile.

Finally, only through the identity of the Revealer and that
which is revealed is it possible to conceive the strictly personal
idea of God. If God were not in Himself Love, but only became
so through His relation to the world, then only in relation to
the world would He be personal; in Himself He would be im-
personal. The personal being of Jesus Christ is not merely a
TTpoacoTTov of God, a personal theophany, but the personal being
of Jesus Christ is the personal Being of God Himself. The "1"
of God who speaks to us is the eternal "I" of God; His Self-
existence as an "I" is not an historical manifestation, but it is
His eternal Nature. From all eternity, before there was any
world at all, God is the One who speaks and loves; the Word
does not arise first of all as a means of communication to the
world; from all eternity it is an integral part of the Nature of
God. Only when we have thus traced the Biblical Idea of God
back to its ultimate source can we finally eliminate that He-
gelian idea — so dear to the thought of the natural man — of the
God who only "becomes personal" within the sphere of History.
Yet all this is already implicit, if not explicit, in the simple
statement of faith: God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(8)
The second conclusion leads in the opposite direction, since it
proceeds from the second article of the doctrine of the Trinity,
namely, that the Father and the Son are not identical. If we
take this second idea seriously, we find that this leads to con-
clusions which are of the greatest practical significance, even
for our attitude towards social and ethical questions. Jesus
Christ does say, it is true: "I and the Father are one",^ "He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" ;2 but the Scriptures
never say: "The Father is the Son and the Son is the Father."
Now this distinction between Father and Son is particularly

I John lo: 30. ' John 14: 9.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

important in view of what was said at an earlier point about
the Hidden God ; but the traditional form of the doctrine of the
Trinity has never been fully able to express the conclusions
to which this leads, because the fact that "Father and
Son" were set alongside of, instead of after one another,
prevented it.

God IS the One who is revealed in Jesus Christ. As such He
is the Word, the Light, and the Life, Salvation, Love. In Jesus
Christ we perceive God in His "own proper work". But we know
that there is also a "strange work" of God, which He does
"cogente malitia hominum" . This "Work" is not Salvation, it is
not Life, it is not Light ; this is the Work which He does where
He is not known, not loved, not trusted, not recognized. There,
too. He is the Holy God ; but His holiness does not express itself
as love, but as wrath, as consuming Fire.^ Where He is thus
present, as the wrathful God, there He is not present in Jesus
Christ, but outside of Him. The witness of the New Testament
confronts us unmistakably with this alternative: either in
Christ, the love of God, or outside of Christ, wrath. To be "in
Christ", from the subjective point of view, means "faith", and
from the objective point of view it means "salvation". The God
whom we have in Jesus Christ is Life and Salvation; and the
God whom we have in Jesus Christ is He whom we have in
faith, in obedience to His Word. But the God whom we have in
unbelief, outside of Jesus Christ, is the angry God who does not
prepare salvation for us, but judgment for doom.

Thus God acts in a twofold sphere : the sphere where God is
as He reveals Himself in Jesus Christ, as Salvation, Light, and
Life; and the sphere where He is not present in Jesus Christ,
namely, as consuming wrath, which destroys, annihilates, and
works in darkness. These two spheres are reality; the one is the
reality in Christ in which we are set by the saving Word and
saving faith ;^ the other is the reality outside of Christ, the
world of doom and darkness, out of which we are rescued by
Christ, 3 in so far as we believe in Him.

The reality and the seriousness of decision depend upon the
reality of these two spheres. Upon this fact, too, rests the
reality of redemption as being rescued from actual doom. The
denial of this twofold reality may end in the denial of reality,
that is, of the reality of redemption. If this takes place, then
revelation is not salvation, but merely the removal of error.

' Heb. 12: 29. ^ Col. i: 13.

3 I Thess. 1: 10; Rom. 5: 9; i Cor. i: 21.

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THE TRIUNE GOD

The seriousness of being rescued is just as great as the serious-
ness of the danger from which we are rescued.

And not only are these two spheres real, but God also is real
in these two spheres, as the Loving One in the one, and as the
Wrathful One in the other. It is possible, by remaining in
unbelief, or by turning away from faith, to fall away from Jesus
Christ and the salvation revealed in Him — that is what makes
the summons to believe so serious. But we cannot finally escape
from God by unbelief and disobedience. Even in Hell, God is
present, not as the God revealed in Christ as Love, but in His
wrath, which is a Consuming Fire. Where Jesus Christ is, there
is Light and Salvation; where Light and Salvation are not
present, Jesus Christ is not present. But god is still there, as
the God of wrath. "He that believeth on the Son hath ever-
lasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see
life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."' This is the testi-
mony of the whole of the New Testament.

We may try to deny this distinction — which is repellent to
the monistic type of thought — by rejecting either the reality of
destruction and doom or the fact that God is at work in
destruction. The former is the radical doctrine of Apokatastasis,
which leads ultimately to a denial of judgment. If there is no
doom outside of Christ, then to remain in unbelief is not a
serious danger, then "in any case" everything will come right
in the end, with or without faith; then the decision of faith
loses its seriousness, and the same applies to the message of
rescue through Jesus Christ. We shall be dealing with this
point later on in connexion with the doctrine of Election. The
second way out of this difficulty is suggested in the view that
although doom undoubtedly exists, because it lies outside the
sphere of Jesus Christ, it also lies outside the sphere of God.
But this would lead us directly into a metaphysical dualism;
there would then be a power of darkness which is not subject to
God, a devil who is not an instrument of the wrath of God, but
another "God" — an enemy of the True God. This doctrine is in
opposition both to the Biblical idea of God and the clear witness
of the Bible. Even darkness, doom, death, ruin, lies within the
sphere of God's working; it is the working out of the divine
wrath.

The Biblical truth of the Holy God forces us to this con-
clusion: where God is known and recognized in His revelation,
where obedience is rendered unto the Son, there Holiness is one

' John 3: 36.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

with the Love of God ; but where God is not recognized, where
the Word of Holy Mercy is not received, there the Hohness of
God works itself out as His wrath. God sometimes exercises His
sovereignty in a way which is not His "own proper work". His
work in Christ, but His "strange work". Thus God is present
where Jesus Christ is not present with His Light and Life, in
the darkness, as the God of wrath. Thus there are works of
God which as such are precisely not works of the Son. This
non-identity of God and the Son is based upon the fact that
God alone is Creator, but that the Son is called simply and
solely the mediator of the Creation. In the New Testament the
Son, or Jesus Christ, is never called the Creator. This title is
given to the Father alone. ^ It is He who has "granted unto the
Son to have life in Himself ".^ God gives to the Son deity from
all eternity, as it is the Father who sends the Son to be the
Redeemer of the world. This "Subordinationism", which does
not eliminate the oixoovmos, is inseparable from the Biblical
testimony and the Biblical idea of God. God freely determines
Himself for the Son, for community, and for love; hence, also.
He is free to determine His Holiness as wrath, and — cogente
malitia hominum — to work doom. This freedom of God, to effect
salvation and doom, light and darkness, life and death,3 is the
unfathomable mystery of God, which even in the revelation of
the Son remains a mystery. The mystery of God is not exhausted
by the Son; for "pater est fons totius trinitatis" ; God can be
other than the One revealed in Jesus Christ as Light and Life,
namely, the Hidden God, who as such operates not in the
Word and its light, but in that which is not "word" or "know-
ledge", in darkness. This is the Deus nudus, who does not veil
Himself in the form of the Son of Man — the terrible Majesty,
which is "intolerable to all creation".

From all this, then, we can understand why it is that where-
ever natural life and events are severed from their relation to
their "end" in Christ — hence where the natural sphere of this
world as such is in question — the Bible speaks, it is true, of
God, but not of Jesus Christ, not of the Son. Certainly, even the
natural creation, even the natural course of events has its goal
and its meaning in the Son, in the Kingdom of God. 4 Every-
thing is to be gathered up in Christ, just as the keystone of the
arch locks all the stones of the vaulting together, and thus

' The Psalm-quotation used in Hebrews i : lo should not be used as an
argument against the explicit doctrine of i : 2.

* John 5: 26. 3 Is. 45: 7. ^ Col. i: 17; Eph. i: 6.

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THE TRIUNE GOD

sustains the whole.' Creation is intended to be perfected, and
this perfecting takes place in the Son of His Love, in the King-
dom of God, in the fellowship of love between the creature and
the Creator.2 But not every creature reaches this goal, and not
everything in the natural order is directed towards this end.
There is therefore a separation, a Kpims, at the end of the age,
a Judgment. But the elements which will then be separated are
even now present — even though invisible — like tares mingled
with the wheat. 3 Something is ripening, not only towards the
fullness of harvest but towards ruin. This is the sinful natural
element and the natural course of this world, in so far as it is,
and remains, outside of Christ. As such it is the "sphere of
wrath", which stands under the "Prince of this world", in
which the wrath of God is supreme.

God's governance in the State also belongs to this natural
course of events in this world in which God is also at work. In
the New Testament this sphere is clearly and explicitly assigned
to a plane which comes under the wrath of God, and therefore
nowhere is it related to the activity of Jesus Christ. It is not
the Son, who has "ordered" this sphere of retributive justice
but "God". 4 Pilate has not received the power to kill Christ
from the Son; it is given to him absolutely "from above". 5
Indeed, from one point of view, is not the Cross of Christ, in its
destructive effect, God's "strange work", effected by those who
worked against Christ, through the betrayal of Judas, through
Pilate's judicial murder, through the blasphemous verdict of
the Jewish religious authorities ? To this extent it is not a mis-
take to perceive, behind the powers which crucified Christ, the
demonic angelic powers. ^

In so far as this is the case, the wrath of God is at work, the
wrath of God, which the God-Man suffers in place of man. All
this is the opus alienum Dei, therefore it is not the work of
Christ, because, and to the extent in which the distinctive
quality of Christ, Agape, is not evident. It is the God who in
the Judgment separates those who belong to Christ from those
who do not, the Father who has "prepared eternal fire for the
devil and all his angels",? that fire which consists precisely in
absolute alienation from Christ.

The result of all this is, that we see how necessary it is to
make a clear distinction between the works which God does in

' Eph. i: 9-IO. 2 Eph. i : 20 ff. ; 3: 19. 3 Matt. 13: 30.

4 Rom. 13: I ff. 5 Jolin 19: 11.

' I Cor. 2: 8. Cf. Cullmann, Christus und die Zeit, p. 90.
7 Matt. 25: 41.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

and through the Son, from those which He does outside the
Son of His Love. The statement which, from the point of view
of Trinitarian theology has been laid down as a "rule",i and
which has been repeated countless times: opera trinitatis ad
extra sunt indivisa, must therefore be used with extreme
caution. There are works of the Father, which are most cer-
tainly not the works of the Son. For the Scriptures never speak
of the "works of wrath" of Christ, but only of the wrath of God.
But the foregoing statement becomes a disastrous heresy if it is
used without the "Augustinian Clause"^: servato discrimine et
or dine personarum.'i

If, however, this clause is forgotten, then one feels justified
in transferring all that is said of the working of the Father to
that of the Son, by which the whole distinction between the
sphere of doom outside of Christ and the sphere of salvation in
Christ becomes blurred. The failure to make this distinction
then produces a Christian Monism which leaves no room either
for the wrath of God or for Judgment; this means that the
seriousness of decision is removed from life, and necessarily
leads to a non-Scriptural doctrine of Universalism.

The Biblical message contains in itself the dialectical tension
between Wrath and Mercy, between the Holiness which is
identical with Love, and the Holiness which, as the wrath of
God, is in opposition to it. Human thought, however, is always
trying to evade this dialectic. It desires and demands an
obvious unity. For this there are two possibilities: Calvin's
doctrine of the "double decree" of God, or the opposite doctrine
of Universalism. Neither the one nor the other is in accordance
with the teaching of the Bible. There is no "double decree",
but only the one which is revealed in Christ. There is, however,
also no soothing doctrine of Universalism, because there is a
sphere which lies outside of Christ — abiding under the wrath of
God.

This Biblical view, however, is connected with the distinction
between the works which the Father does in the Son, and those
which He does in the sphere which is darkness and death,
which thus has no part or lot in the Son, who is Light, Life, and
Salvation. Thus the web of the true doctrine of Election is
inextricably entangled with the correct doctrine of the Triune
God.

' K. Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, I, i, 395.

* Luthardt, Kompendium der Dogmatik, 11, p. 130.

3 Of. Augustine, De Triniiate, I, 4.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER i6

(l) ON THE PLACE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY AND ITS
HISTORY

In contrast to other aspects of the Doctrine of God, the
historical development of the doctrine of the Trinity has been
treated so often and so thoroughly, and it is also such a favourite
subject in the History of Dogma, that there is no need to
devote a long section to it. In order to supplement what has
already been said in the text, therefore, I will only deal with
some specific points.

Karl Barth, as everyone will readily admit, has rendered a
great service to theology by re-emphasizing the decisive im-
portance of the doctrine of the Trinity within Protestant
theology; he has been the first to do so, and it is to him that
we owe the renewed sense of its significance (cf . also my work :
Der Mittler, 1927, pp. 233-52). In his view, the outstanding,
and indeed the absolutely decisive importance of this doctrine
lies in the fact that in it he sees the basis for his main concern,
the contrast between the speculative "theologia naturalis" and
the theology which from beginning to end, in accordance with
revelation, is orientated towards Jesus Christ alone. The
Triune God is the God of revelation, not the God of the philo-
sophers. Hence he sets the doctrine of the Trinity at the begin-
ning of His work and has no use for a theology in which the
Being of God in general — and that can only mean with specu-
lative philosophical categories — is dealt with first of all. Indeed,
he places the doctrine of the Trinity not merely at the begin-
ning of the Doctrine of God in his Dogmatics, but at the be-
ginning of his Prolegomena to the Dogmatics. For if the Prolego-
mena are to be a theological Theory of Knowledge, how can
they help dealing with revelation ? And if they deal with revela-
tion, then certainly they must deal with the Triune God.

The vigour and force with which Barth lays stress on this
his main concern has had such a salutary effect upon the
whole development of theology that I would gladly abstain
from criticism. But Barth, in the defence of his main concern —
with which we are in entire and unhesitating agreement — in his
great "spring-cleaning" has cleared out and thrown away a
great deal that had nothing to do with Natural Theology, but
was an integral part of the truth of the Bible ; owing to the one-
sided way in which he has defended his cause, he has injured the

235

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

legitimate claims of Biblical theology, and has thus created
unnecessary hindrances for the promulgation of his ideas.

(a) From the standpoint of method, it seems strange that the
most important part of the doctrine of God is not treated here,
but in the Prolegomena. Certainly, the Prolegomena deal with
revelation, and thus with the God who reveals His Name to us
in Jesus Christ. But either the Prolegomena are what their
name says — and then its theme is a formal and not a material
one — or, to put it still more plainly, that which is treated
materially in the Dogmatics proper, should be here presented
from the formal point of view, or there are no Prolegomena at
all. The theme of the Prolegomena is certainly revelation, and
that implies the "Triune God". What should now be done,
however, is to deal with revelation from the formal point of
view — ^with revelation, that is, as "principium cognoscendi" ;
revelation should not be treated as "principium essendi", as
the content of the doctrine of God. It is the formal theology of
revelation, and is only thus to be distinguished from material
dogmatics. Prolegomena in which the most important part of
dogmatics is anticipated, and dogmatics in which the most
important element is absent — this certainly is not the classical
way of building up theology.

(b) Now, however, this structural anomaly is connected with
a defect in the content of his doctrine of the Trinity, and this is
the reason why this must be mentioned here. Barth does not
distinguish between the problem of the Trinity which is set us
by the message of the Bible, and the doctrine of the Trinity.
He does not see that the doctrine of the Trinity is the product
of reflection and not a kerygma. The kerygma is the God re-
vealed in Christ, Christ, the genuine revelation of God. The
doctrine of the Trinity itself, however, is not a Biblical doctrine,
and this indeed not by accident but of necessity. It is the
product of theological reflection upon the problem, which is
raised, necessarily, by the Christian kerygma. The Bible also
speaks of the Holy God, of the God who is Love, of the Al-
mighty, etc. ; the theme of these theological doctrinal elements
is itself Biblical. But the Bible does not speak of the "Triune
God"; this theme, as a theme, is a product of reflection on the
truth given in the revelation, upon the problem which the
revelation, the Kerygma, has raised.

Thus Barth assigns an importance to the Doctrine of the
Trinity which does not legitimately belong to it, but only to
the revelation itself. This means that more weight is given to

2^6

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER l6

the doctrine of the Trinity than the actual message of the Bible
warrants.

(c) On the other hand, as compared with Barth, we have to
justify the fact that we do not begin our study of the doctrine
of God with the doctrine of the Trinity, but with the doctrine
of the Holiness and the Love of God. From all that has just
been said, it is easy to see what our reply will be. Here we are
most certainly not reverting to the theologia naturalis or the
speculative doctrine of God, which Barth, rightly, rejects with
such horror. On the basis of the Biblical revelation, there is
indeed sufficient ground for clear teaching about the Nature of
God. To teach the truth concerning the Nature of God means
nothing but the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ; but this
does not mean that without further ado, and first of all, we
begin by speaking of the problem of the unity of the Revealer
with that which is revealed. On the contrary, the doctrine of the
Trinity only becomes really intelligible when first of all, and
indeed in harmony with revelation, we speak of God's Holiness
and Love. For the revelation flows from His Holiness and His
Love. His Revelation is rooted in the Nature of God; but from
the revelation we come to knoiv His Nature. The doctrine of the
Trinity, however, springs from reflection upon this process; it
is — so to speak — the product of reflection on the unity of the
ratio essendi and the ratio cognoscendi of revelation. The Chris-
tian revelation is only to be understood from the standpoint of
the Holiness and the Love of God, but both are to be under-
stood, not as "attributes", but as the very "Nature" of God,
although we only know the Holiness and the Love of God
through revelation.

(d) The question of the place of dogmatics, therefore, proves
to be a criterion for the clarity of the distinction between that
which is "given" in revelation, and reflection upon it. Because
Barth does not make a clear distinction here, and thus gives a
bias to the doctrine of the Trinity which it ought not to have,
he also fails to make a clear distinction between faith and
theological reflection, and to this extent falls into "theolo-
gismus".^ Owing to this over-emphasis, theological thought
acquires an importance which cannot be ascribed to it from the
faith contained in the Scriptures. This high estimate of the
doctrine of the Trinity is a legacy from Catholicism, and cer-
tainly cannot be derived from the Reformation.

Far more clearly than Barth, the Reformers distinguished

' The error of substituting theology for personal faith. (Tr.)
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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

between faith and theological reflection, while the failure to
make this distinction is derived from the Catholic idea of faith.
Moreover, Earth's concern — which is so entirely Scriptural and
Reformed — to eliminate the "theologia naturalis" from the
doctrine of God, is endangered by this. A further result, which
can only be mentioned in passing, is the fact that even in the
formulation of the content of his doctrine of the Trinity, Barth
penetrates too far into the speculative sphere, and does not use
that necessary reserve which springs from the centrality of the
history of salvation in Biblical thought.

(/) Finally, from this view of the problem of the Trinity
there arises also a certain, even though very limited, justifica-
tion for the opposition to the ecclesiastical doctrine of the
Trinity. The stumbling-block for thought which it provides, is
not the stumbling-block and "foolishness" of the Gospel, but,
if I may put it so — an artificial stumbling-block. It is not the
Unity of the Three Persons which is the mystery of the Chris-
tian Faith; rather, this stumbling-block is the result of the
process of transferring the interest from the realm of salvation
to that of transcendental speculation. It is therefore intelligible
that it is precisely those theologians whose thinking is entirely
controlled by the thought of the Bible who have had little
sympathy with the doctrine of the Trinity. I am thinking of
the whole school of "Biblical" theologians. This has nothing to
do with hostility to the doctrine on the part of Socinian and
Rationalistic thinkers, save that perhaps even the Socinians
must be credited with having a certain understanding of this
position. The rationalistic rigidity of the theology of the En-
lightenment, like many other peculiar features of the Enlighten-
ment, is not to be ascribed wholly to the pride of man's reason,
but also to the lack of understanding displayed by so many
ecclesiastical theologians. How often, and at how many points,
has the doctrinaire temper of orthodox theology driven men
into Rationalism, who would perhaps otherwise have been
ready to listen to a truly Biblical theology.

(2) THE ORTHODOX DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

In order to judge the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity
aright, as presented in the Athanasian Creed, it is necessary to
consider what was the point at issue at that time.

Nothing less was at stake than the rejection of polytheist
mythology (Arius) on the one hand, and the retention of the
Divinity of Christ and the reality of revelation on the other

238

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER l6

(Monarchianism). To put it in other terms, what was at stake
was whether Christianity should become either Paganism or
Judaism, or whether it should remain Christianity. We cannot
be sufficiently grateful that the Fathers of the Church saw this
danger, and that they did all that lay in their power to avert it.
Had Arius conquered, it would have been all over with the
Christian Church.

But that is only one side of the question. The ecclesiastical
doctrine of the Trinity is not only the product of genuine
Biblical thought, it is also the product of philosophical specula-
tion, which is remote from the thought of the Bible. The idea of
"una substantia" has had a particularly disastrous influence. It
greatly facilitated the development of the Ontologism of the
Middle Ages. To conceive God as Substance is the very sharpest
contrast to the Biblical idea of the Absolute Subject. We may
refine the idea of substance as philosophically as we will: it is,
and it remains, the idea of the Object. That this fatal idea
entered into the Credo was a real disaster.

Similarly, the idea of the Three Persons is more than ques-
tionable. Even Augustine felt this (cf. De Trinitate, V, 9).
K. Barth seems to share this misgiving {Kirchl. Dogm., I, i,
p. 703). We may order people to think thus: "Thou shalt think
these Three Persons as One", but it is no use : there still remains
an uncertain vacillation between Tritheism and Monotheism.
Not only the idea of "substance", but also this idea of "Person",
was much too wooden to express the mystery of the unity of
the Revealer and that which is revealed. The fact that the
Three Persons were conceived as "side by side" was, however,
the result of the fact that Biblical thought, with its emphasis
on the "history of salvation", was no longer understood. Theo-
logical attention was devoted to the transcendent background
of revelation in itself, and the life of the relations within the
Trinity was made the main subject of consideration; this is the
profoundly non-Biblical element in the ecclesiastical doctrine
of the Trinity. Finally, the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity
aided the growth of the mistaken understanding of Agape, the
confusion between Agape and Eros. Since the life of God within
the Trinity was severed from the history of Salvation, the
Agape of God came to be understood as His love for Himself.

This alone "legitimized" the confusion between Eros and
Agape. If Love be Eros, then naturally God can do no other
than love Himself; for He alone has value for Himself; He
alone — to use Luther's phrase again — is "diligibile". To this

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

extent, but really only to this extent, we can agree with
Nygren's criticism of the doctrine of the Trinity. It is true that
already in Augustine this confusion of Eros and Agape finds
some support in his understanding of the Trinity (Nygren,
Eros und Agape, II, pp. 358 ff.) and Nygren shows clearly that
the mediaeval doctrine of the Trinity in particular serves to
support the Eros motif. But when Nygren finds a certain ten-
dency to move in this direction even in the Gospel of John
{ibid., I, pp. 126 ff.), because here the Love of God to His Son
is the archetype of all love, there is certainly some con-
fusion of thought. Nygren, too, admits that love is the Nature
of God, and that John wished to express this in particular in
his Trinitarian "metaphysic" (I, p. 131). But it would be an
exaggeration of the contrast between Eros and Agape if God
were said to be able only to love the sinner and the lost, in
order that He might only love that which was unworthy. The
love which God has for His Son is certainly not His love for
sinners ; but it is and it remains self -giving love. For it is the
Father who "gives" to the Son, "to have life in Himself".
Here too the character of love as self-communication is pre-
served. The essence of love within the Trinity is not "self"-
love but self-communication, and in harmony with this, the
love of the Son is the "giving-back" of that which has been
received.

Nygren's criticism of the problem of the Trinity, however,
remains a criterion and a warning to this extent, that it shows
how dangerous it is to allow our thinking to be mainly con-
cerned with the Nature of the Triune God, apart from the
historical revelation of God in Christ. When we do this we are
not far from the Augustinian error. The fact that Karl Barth
has not fallen a prey to this temptation testifies to the strength
of his Biblical thought.

240

CHAPTER 17

THE PROBLEM OF THE "DIVINE ATTRIBUTES"

While the Biblical revelation naturally ascribes certain
qualities or "attributes" to God; He is Almighty, Righteous,
Omniscient, Omnipresent, etc. — in the sphere of theology the
idea arose very early that the notion of "attributes" was
dubious, that it was something which detracted from the
purity of the Idea of God. The question was raised: Does not
this way of thinking shake our belief in the Absoluteness of
God? Does not each "attribute" mean that God is made
finite? Even among the very early theologians of the Church,
among the Apologists,^ men's minds were influenced by the
recollection of Plato's words that God exists without defining
"how" he exists; He is not merely unlike man: a-rroLos yap 6
deos, ov fxouov o6k dvdpco7T6fiop<f)os.^ For He is indeed above
all being vTrepovmos, i-neKeLvx ttjs ovalag.i In later times it
was mainly the thought of the absolute "simplicity" of God
that prevented the ascription of definite qualities to God.
Involuntarily we think of Spinoza's Omnis determinatio est
negatio, when we already read in Arnobius:4 Quis enim Deum
dixerit fortem, sapientem, constantem, quis prohum, sobrium?
Quidquid de Deo dixerimus, in humanum transit.

And since Augustine once said: 5 Quidquid de Deo digne
dicitur non qualitas est, sed essentia, criticism of the idea of the
Divine Attributes has never ceased. Even the Protestant
scholastics see themselves forced to try to solve this idea in
Nominalist terms. Si proprie et accurate loqui velimus, Deus
nullas habet proprietates (Quenstedt) .^

What is the origin of this striking contrast between theology
and the witness of revelation? Can it be really true that the
Prophets and the Apostles speak of God in a way which is not
"digne" or "proprie""^. Is their naive way of speaking of the
Divine Attributes really a transire in humanum} Or can it be
that here, at this decisive point, there is perhaps an actual
contradiction between two ideas of God, which, in point of fact,
cannot be combined, two views which may be described as the
philosophical and speculative Idea of God on the one hand, and

' Cf. Justin, Apology, II, 6. ^ Leg. alleg., i, 47.

3 De rep., I, 509, casually quoted by Justin, Dial. c.T.c. 3.

4 "Adv. gent.". Ill, 19. 5 De Civ. Dei., VIII, 6.
' Theol. did. poL, I, C. 8, Sect. 3.

241

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

on the other, one which is based upon the thought of God in
revelation ?

In any case, from the standpoint of BibUcal thought, in
reference to the God of revelation, the use of the Platonic
phrase : aTroto? yap 6 6e6s ov fjLovov ovK avd pcoTT6ixop(j>os , arouses
our misgivings; for this is the language of those who, when
they speak of "God", mean "the Absolute" of philosophical
speculation. "God" cannot be reached by rational thought
save through a process of abstraction, carried out to its logical
climax, for which no statement on "being" can be abstract
enough. This "God" is certainly airoLog, eVe/cetm Trdarjs ovalas.
Measured by this ideal of the "pure" Idea of God, certainly
all that in any way reminds us that God is Subject or
that He is Person, must look like anthropomorphism. For
thought of this kind, however, it is not enough merely to
avoid such "anthropomorphic" expressions; rather, every
definite statement about the Nature of this Absolute comes
under the judgment of the omnis determinatio est negaiio. As an
Ultimate, all that here remains for us is that which is not
determined, that which is completely unspeakable [v-rrep Xoyov),
"the Absolute", in the final sense of the word.

Anyone who knows the history of the development of the
doctrine of God in "Christian" theology, and especially the
doctrine of the Attributes of God, will never cease to marvel at
the unthinking way in which theologians adopted the postulates
of philosophical speculation on the Absolute, and at the amount
of harm this has caused in the sphere of the "Christian"
doctrine of God. They were entirely unaware of the fact that
this procedure was an attempt to mingle two sets of ideas which
were as incompatible as oil and water : in each view the content
of the word "God" was entirely different; for each view was
based on an entirely different conception of God.

They did not perceive the sharp distinction between the
speculative idea of the Absolute and the witness of revelation,
between the "God of the philosophers" and the "God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob", of which Pascal became so clearly
aware in that decisive experience of his life. From the stand-
point of speculative thought about the Absolute every Christian
statement about God must inevitably end in an "in humanum
transire", it must seem an unfitting "anthropomorphism",
something which is "non digne loqui" . But this contradiction
does not first emerge when confronted with the Biblical language
about the Attributes of God, it occurs as soon as fundamental

242

THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

definitions of Being are formulated. The God who is without all
qualities, who is above all Being, is never the God who makes
His Name known, never the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
whose Nature is Holiness and Love.

This obliviousness of so many early theologians accounts for
the extensive influence of this point of view — (the speculative
way of thinking which could not be combined with the Biblical
revealed religion) — on the development of the doctrine of God,
but above all on the doctrine of the Divine Attributes. The
extent of this influence is absolutely amazing. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that the theological doctrine of the Divine
Attributes, handed on from the theology of the Early Church,
has been shaped by the Platonic and Neo-Platonic Idea of God,
and not by the Biblical Idea. The proof of this statement will
be produced directly. But first of all we ask, how was such a
fantastic distortion of thought possible? We find the answer
in a fact to which Ritschl was the first to draw our attention,
in his criticism of the development of the dogma of the Early
Church, but which, for his part, he was unable to stress
sufficiently clearly, because his own theological knowledge (far
more than he himself was aware) was affected by the influence
of that which he himself called: "the Hellenization of Christian
Thought". In point of fact, we are here confronted by the
decisive element in this process; here, in the sphere of the
doctrine of the Divine Attributes, we see it operating, so to
speak, in flagranti. The theologians of the Early Church were all
more or less educated in Greek philosophy — and no intelligent
person will blame them for this, or even suggest that there was
anything wrong in it! But in their eagerness to present the
Christian Idea of God in "pure", "exalted", and "spiritual"
terms, they failed to notice the contradiction between the
speculative method of the Greek thinkers and the way of
reflection prescribed for the Christian theologian by that which
has been "given" in revelation. Thus, without realizing what
they were doing, they allowed the speculative idea of the
Absolute to become incorporated in the corpus of Christian
theology.

In the earlier stages of the theology of the Early Church
(which extends from the Apologists to the Nicene Fathers) , this
influence was still limited ; in essentials the doctrine of God was
still determined by revelation and the history of salvation ; thus
it was still Biblical; some of the Fathers, such as Irenaeus, and
even Athanasius, reveal scarcely a trace of the speculative bias

243

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

in comparison with the BibUcal foundation. But when the ideas
of Neo-Platonism began to stream into the Church, especially
from the time of the Pseudo-Dionysius (whose addition of the
name of "Areopagite" gave him an almost apostolic authority),
and began to influence theology, and when, from the time of
Scotus Erigena onwards, throughout the whole of the Middle
Ages, it acquired an almost unlimited reputation, and an almost
canonical authority, infinite havoc was wrought in the sphere of
the theological doctrine of God.

Here, again, we must use the word "obliviousness". Anyone
who comes for the first time from the Bible into the world of
Scholastic Theology feels himself in a foreign world. At every
turn he is confronted by quotations from the Areopagite which
have the authority of proofs. No Father of the Church, not even
Augustine, is quoted so often, nor has exercised such an influence
upon the theological thought of the Middle Ages, as this
Neo-Platonist with the Biblical pseudonym, with his speculative
thought of the Absolute tinged with Christianity. Along with
the "Donation of Constantine" and the Pseudo-Isidorian
Decretals, the writings of the Areopagite are one of the most
impressive examples of the sinister influence of a pseudonym
on world history.

There is the further fact that in addition to the work of
Dionysius, the writings of Augustine also provided another
channel for the infiltration of the Neo-Platonist idea of the
Absolute into mediaeval and post-mediaeval theology. At the
same time, we must admit that the Neo-Platonist element in
the thought of Augustine — at least in his later works — is not
so strong as it is in the writings of Dionysius, but must be
described as one which is entirely subordinate to the faith of the
Bible. To complete the picture we must recollect the Platonism
of the earlier Fathers of the Church — such as Clement, Origen,
Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzen — through whom,
although to a lesser extent, the speculative idea of the Absolute
entered into theology. No one has yet computed the final result
of the devastation wrought in the "Christian" theological Idea
of God by these three elements, which all point in the same
direction; once this is perceived, however, amazement will
never cease.

After this historical digression, which is justified in view of
the importance of the subject, we return to our particular theme :
the problem of the doctrine of the Attributes of God. The
aberration introduced by the speculative and philosophical

244

THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

Idea of God appears mainly in the method by which the theo-
logical idea of the Attributes was acquired. The fact that any-
one ever came to speak of the Divine Attributes at all is not,
indeed (according to those voices to which we have just been
listening), a matter of course, but it could not be avoided if
one wished to remain in contact with the Biblical doctrine.
Thus a compromise was made: properly speaking we cannot
talk about the Divine Attributes, but we do it nevertheless,
since the Biblical and Church tradition forces us to do so;
but we do it in such a way that it agrees with philosophical,
but not with Biblical thought. This way is the method of
the "viae".

This concept and this method is derived — characteristically
— from the Areopagite." The method of the "viae" in the
doctrine of God corresponds exactly to the "method" in the
practice of mysticism. In both cases a "way" — a method, a
via — leads from man to God, in the one case — in the theological
doctrine of the Attributes — a way of thought, in the other —
in mysticism, a spiritual exercise. The first and the most impor-
tant of these "ways", the via negationis,^ is in exact accordance
with the practice of mystical Neo-Platonism. The process of
abstraction of the thinker is paralleled by the self-emptying of
the mystic, his gradual emancipation from all that is earthly.
In so doing the mystic reaches — as the goal of this self -emptying
— union with the Godhead, the "liberation from all images",
through the experience of ecstasy; the thinker, at the close of
his process of abstraction, attains the idea of the Absolute,
that which cannot be named.

The second "way" is the via eminentiae. The process here
consists in moving from the creaturely analogy, by a process of
gradual ascent, to the Infinite, to positive statements about the
Attributes of God. We might, therefore, also call this process
the way of Analogy. Man is mighty, the angels are mightier,
God is Almighty. Man knows, the angels know more in a higher
sense, God is All-knowing. The inclusion of the Angels which
gives a dynamic to this argument, is in entire harmony with the
role assigned to superhuman, and yet creaturely beings in

' De div. nom., VII, 3. Certainly here there lies behind his thought the idea
of Clement of Alexandria, e.g. that through abstraction one must eliminate the
finite elements in the thought of God, till all that remains is the Idea of Unity
{Strom., V, 11).

* Like this method of the "viae" in general, so also this specifically Neo-
Platonist "via eminentiae" was followed by the Protestant Scholastic theo-
logians. Cf. B. Hollaz, Examen. Theol., p. 190.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

mediaeval thought from the time of the book pubUshed by the
Areopagite on the ires hierarchiae.

The third "way" is the via causalitatis. From that which is
given in the experience of the world through the causal idea we
work back to the author of this "given" element, in accordance
with the principle: the effect presupposes the cause. Thus, too,
one gains certain positive statements about the Nature and the
Attributes of God, possibly even, as philosophical Theism
shows us, to a positive valuation of the Personality of God.
If, however, the latter is once presupposed, then in this way it is
possible to set up such a sum-total of qualities that to some
extent they agree with that which has been said above about
thought controlled by revelation, questionable as the application
of the idea of causality to God may be.

All these "ways" are possibilities of knowing "God" in a
human manner; they are natural, rational theology. ^ How far
these methods are justified as ways of thinking need not be
discussed here; this is a subject for philosophical criticism. All
this has nothing to do with the Christian Idea of God, and
with the way in which faith, on the basis of the divine self-
revelation concerning God, knows of His Nature and His
Attributes. All this is rational metaphysics, it is not Christian
theology ; it is theologia naturalis, not theologia revelata.

If, however, this speculative rationalistic process of the viae
in the sphere of a Christian doctrine of the Divine Attributes
is forbidden to us once for all, on the other hand a purely
literalistic Bible statement is also insufficient. It consists, like
all other "biblicist" procedure, in collecting Bible passages,
arranging them in some kind of order, and then summing all
this up. Although this process is not so dangerous as the
speculative method, yet it is very unsatisfactory, because it is
so arbitrary. The Biblical statements about the Attributes of
God are, however, not parts of a whole which only need to be
fitted together. Such a use of the Biblical testimony contradicts
the nature and intention of this testimony. The very fact that
the Bible uses so much poetical, pictorial language should
suffice to warn us not to follow this line of thought. In so
doing the theologian both makes his own task too easy, and
does violence to the Bible. Dogmatics does not consist in con-
structing a system of Biblical statements, but it is reflection upon
revelation, on the basis of the religious evidence of the Bible.

' This is why the comparatively mild verdict on the method of the viae by
Karl Barth is somewhat surprising [Kirchl. Dogm., II, i, pp. 390 ff.).

246

THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

What, then, in the legitimate formation of theological con-
cepts, can be meant by the "Divine Attributes" ?'

We return once more to that sentence of Augustine, where
he says that all that we say "digne" about God is not an
"Attribute" but His "Nature". This statement, in spite of the
fact that it is untrue, has founded a "school" of thought, and
has even led good theologians astray. The Nature of God is that
which God makes known to us of His revelation about Himself,
about the mystery of His Person, about what He is "in Himself".
But now on the basis of this self-revelation of God we have to
make statements about His Being not only as He is in Himself
apart from this created world, but as He is also in relation to the
world He has created. God in Himself is the Holy One; that is
His Nature, His sovereignty and freedom from the world, the
fact that He is in no way conditioned by the world, that in
Himself He is wholly self-sufficient.

In Himself, however, God is not the Almighty, the Omniscient,
the Righteous One ; this is what He is in relation to the world
which He has created. Or, to put it more correctly, in the
statements which refer to the "attributes of God" we express
(on the basis of His self-revelation) God's Nature, as it works
itself out and is made known to us in view of the world which
has been created by Him. The ideas of divine attributes, which
we encounter in the Bible in poetical or in childlike non-
reflective forms as direct testimonies of faith, all point back to
God's Nature, but they express this Nature of God in relation
to different particular aspects of the created world. This shows
clearly the line which the theological doctrine of the Divine
Attributes should follow; its task is to reflect upon the basis of
the Biblical revelation in relation to certain definite aspects of
the created world.

I We prefer this idea to that which Barth has taken over from the Pro-
testant Scholastics of the "Perfections" of God, because the latter is too closely
related to the tradition of the viae.

247

CHAPTER l8

GOD, THE ALMIGHTY

If we turn from the Bible to a work of mediaeval or post-
Reformation theology on the idea of the Divine Omnipotence,
our first impression is one of astonishment at two facts. First of
all, the doctrine of God's Omnipotence is not placed first, as
we might have expected, but it usually appears near the end
of the list of Divine Attributes ;i secondly, the teaching on the
subject is very meagre. The "Attributes" which come first are
those which a theologian who is accustomed to test all doctrine
by the touchstone of revelation would not regard as legitimate
subjects at all; chief among these qualities is the "simplicity"
of God. The development of the doctrine of God has been
determined, not only by mediaeval theology but also in post-
Reformation theology — and thence to a large extent even in
modern Protestant theology — by the ontology of Neo-Platonism :
God as Being, the Summum Bonum, the One who cannot be
named. Hence the primacy of that doctrine of the "simplicity"
of God, a doctrine which, almost more than any other, shows
very clearly the difference between the speculative and the
Biblical Idea of God. If God be defined as "Being", then that
which the Bible understands by the Omnipotence of God can
only be of secondary significance.

Then, too, the way in which this teaching is arranged is
characteristic of this fundamental contradiction. The Latin
word omnipoientia is here closely related to the speculative
tendency in theology. Revelation, as we shall see directly,
teaches nothing about omnipoientia. The Biblical conception
means God's power over the whole universe; but omnipotentia
means the abstract idea that "God can do everything". It is
based upon the idea of "being able", which is entirely absent
from the Biblical idea. This is no accident, but it is necessarily
derived from the speculative ontological starting-point,
God = Being. A more exact analysis of its content would show
that it is a compromise between the Neo-Platonist, Dionysian
concept of "Being" and the Biblical Idea of God; that is, the
result of the effort to achieve a point of contact with the very
different Biblical doctrine of God from the standpoint of the
speculative idea of All-Being and All-existence, of the All-One,
• See below, pp. 294 ff.
248

GOD, THE ALMIGHTY

It is from the idea of omnipotentia that all those theoretical,
curious, fanciful questions arise, which are included in this idea
that "God can do everything", and "what He cannot do" —
a process of questioning which characteristically begins with
Augustine, and in Thomas Aquinas' leads to long disquisitions
on such questions as "whether God could make the Past not to
have existed" or whether He "can make that which He does
not make", or "whether God could make that which He does
make still better", which finally ended in those absurd problems
in sophistry which Erasmus treats with such scathing mockery. ^
Once more : this is no accident ; it arises inevitably out of the
idea of omnipotentia, which would be impossible for a genuinely
Biblical system of thought.

The connexion between the idea of Being and the Idea of
God in speculative theology, however, brings with it a still
more dangerous set of problems, which may end in confusing
the Omnipotence of God with the potentia or with the potestas
absoluta. For if ,the Omnipotence of God be understood as
potestas absoluta, then this idea swallows up all creaturely
independence. God, the Almighty, becomes the One who alone
can effect anything, which again leads logically to the idea that
He is the Sole Reality, and this means Pantheism, or "Theo-
panism".3 The fact that this theology derived from the Areo-
pagite was a serious menace, can be proved by the existence
of the most outstanding work of theology of the early Middle
Ages, De Divisione naturae by Duns Scotus ; other instances are
the early chapters of Zwingli's De Providentia, and several
parts of Luther's De servo arbitrio. The theology of the Church
was clear, however, that it must not follow this path. Hence
it rejected the idea of "sole Reality", and to a large extent also
the idea of the "sole" working of God; but this was only
achieved with difficulty so long as it retained the equation
Deus = Esse. The result of this effort is the distinction between
the potestas absoluta and the potestas ordinata. In more recent
times we find a similar compromise-solution in Schleiermacher,
in the transition from his system of identity to the idea of God
as the "source of absolute dependence". This compromise is
contained in his definition of Omnipotence :4 "The conception
of the Divine Omnipotence contains two ideas: first, that the
entire system of Nature, comprehending all times and spaces,
is founded upon divine causality, which, as eternal and omni-

' Summa Theol., I, 25, 4 fif. 'In the Epistolae virorum obscurorum.

3 Cf. Revelation and Reason, p. 224. (Tr.) 4 Glaubenslehre, para. 54.

249

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

present, is in contrast to all finite causality; and, second, as
affirmed in our feeling of absolute dependence, is completely
presented in the totality of finite being, and consequently
everything for which there is a causality in God happens and
becomes real." Therefore, he goes on to say,^ if we want to
define the idea of Omnipotence still further, there is no need "to
go beyond the natural order". We will now show that the
Biblical conception of God as Almighty means exactly the
opposite. But it was necessary, first of all, to show the problem
created by the theological tradition, in order to be able rightly
to understand the Biblical conception of Omnipotence which is
of an entirely different order.

These problems, created by the idea of the potestas ahsoluta,
do not arise in the Biblical view. The Biblical teaching about
Divine Omnipotence is concerned with the relation of God to
that which He has created. Briefly, this is what it says: that
God has power "over all". Hence it is an Attribute, not a
conception of being. God is not, in Himself, "the Almighty" —
such a statement would be meaningless for the thought of the
Bible, since the power that God possesses — in contrast to that
abstract idea that "He can do everything" — always means
exercising power over something. The idea of "Omnipotence",
however, like that of all other "attributes", is rooted in the
Nature of God, namely, in the fact that God is Free and
Sovereign Lord, whose power cannot be limited by anything or
anyone. In His unrestricted freedom He creates the All, over
which He, because He is its Creator, has complete authority.
The subject of the Biblical idea of Omnipotence is not that of
the Absolute Ens to that which relatively exists, but that of
the Free Lord and Creator to that which He has created. Its
content, too, is the exact opposite of that which is suggested
in Schleiermacher's definition: namely, that God, because He
is the Creator-Lord, is not bound by the creature, but disposes
of him freely. God is free to take the course of nature which He
has created into account or not, to preserve it, or to bring it to
an end. What the Bible means is especially this freedom of God
from the course of Nature, the non-identity of His will with
that of the causality of Nature. God is the God who can work
miracles if He wishes, who can preserve and maintain the
course of Nature, or can suspend it, or do away with it entirely,
if He wills. The fact that God is Absolute Lord over His own
creation is an integral part of His Nature, as the Living God.

' Glaubenslehre, para. 54: 2.
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GOD, THE ALMIGHTY

The course of Nature in the created universe has, it is true,
some connexion with certain hmitations to God's power, and
this is the second important element in the idea of Omnipotence ;
namely, that God limits Himself hy creating something which is
not Himself, something "over against" Himself, which he
endows with a relative independence. Thus it is God Himself
who creates this limitation — hence He is also free to remove it.
He creates it, He limits Himself, in order that a creature may
have room alongside of Himself, in whom and to whom He can
reveal and impart Himself. Thus from the very outset the
Biblical idea of God as Almighty is related to revelation. It can
only be understood in its correlation with this divine self-
limitation which lies in the nature of His Creation. For this very
reason it is entirely free from the problems raised by that idea
of potestas absoluta, which makes all other forms of existence
appear as nothing, which takes from them every vestige of
independence, and above all leaves no room for the freedom of
the creature.

While the idea of the "potestas absoluta" necessarily leads to
determinism, within the thought of the Bible the problem
of freedom in connexion with the idea of God as Almighty is
never actually raised. In the Bible there is no metaphysical
problem of freedom, but only an ethical one, because the idea
of the divine Omnipotence always implies the independence
of the creature. Because this Omnipotence is that of the Lord
and Creator, who makes Himself known to us in His revelation
as One who wills to communicate Himself, it is a power which
does not eliminate creaturely independence, nor, above all, the
freedom of the creature endowed with reason, of Man, but, on
the contrary it establishes it. Compared with the potestas
absoluta, it is a limited power, limited, that is, by that freedom
of the creature which is willed and established by the Creator.
But this limitation is freely self-imposed ; God wills the existence
of an independent being alongside of Himself; thus in the last
resort this limitation springs from the love of God. Thus there
is no limitation from without; the limitation comes from
within, and is imposed by the sovereign will of God alone. This
idea of Omnipotence, however, means that this self-limitation
of God, because it is the act of His own will, does not erect any
barrier to His power or His authority. God remains in authority
over the universe which He has created. This excludes both
errors: Pantheism and Deism. The independence granted to the
creature does not mean that it can erect barriers against the will

251

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

of God. The creature, in spite of its real independence, remains
so entirely at God's disposal that at any moment He could
annihilate it.^ Accordingly, the whole order of Nature which He
has ordained is such that it only exists and functions so long
as God allows it to exist and to function. Thus God remains
free, over against the universe He has created, and its order;
He has authority over it; He is Almighty. In the Biblical
revelation the Divine Omnipotence means that He is free to
deal with the Universe He has created when and how He wills.
This is an unlimited Divine authority, which does not remove
the independence of the creature, but does bind it wholly to
the life of God ; and it is a limitation of the power of God, based
solely and simply in His will as Creator and Preserver; which
thus not only does not infringe His freedom, but on the contrary
asserts it to the full.

In this sense alone does the Bible speak of the Omnipotence
of God. The word "Omnipotence" does not occur in the Bible,
and the word "the Almighty" only occurs at one point:
iravTOKparajp.^ But the truth itself is expressed in a variety of
ways. God is El Shaddai;3 He is the Lord of Lords ;4 He is the
only Lord. 5 He does what He wills ;6 "He spake and it was
done; He commanded, and it stood fast";? hence "with God
nothing is impossible". ^ All that is, has been created by Him;
nothing happens and nothing exists apart from His will. 9
Not even the least thing happens apart from His will,'" God is,
above all, the God who works miracles, who freely disposes of
His creatures. God can do what He wills, without any limitations
at all.

Moreover, the Biblical idea of Omnipotence is completely
free from that fanciful, argumentative, experimental element
which is inevitably connected with the idea of the potestas
absoluta, which leads to those typically scholastic explanations
about the extent of the divine Omnipotence. We are not con-
cerned with an "Omnipotence in itself", but with the un-
restricted freedom of the God who has made His nature and His
will known to us in His revelation. There is no room here for
the question: What could God do, if He would} He reveals
Himself as the One who can do all that He wills. The Bible is
speaking of something quite different from that abstract idea

' "Heaven and earth will pass away" (Matt. 24: 35) : this, like the Creation,
is one of the fundamental truths stated in the Bible.

2 Rev. 1:8. 3 Gen. 17: i. 4 Ps. 115: 3.

5 I Tim. 6: 15. ^ Ps. 115: 3. 7 Ps. 33: 9.

8 Luke i: 37; Matt. 19: 26. 9 John i: i ff. •» Matt. 10: 29.

252

GOD, THE ALMIGHTY

of Omnipotence when it says: "For He spake and it was done;
He commanded and it stood fast." This means: that no dif-
ference exists between what God wills and what He can do,
that His will already contains its realization. This is His power
over the All : that it is always at His disposal.

But this will is that which He has revealed to us. Hence the
Omnipotence of God is nearly always mentioned only in con-
nexion with His work of revelation and redemption. This comes
out plainly in the way in which the Bible speaks of miracles.
In miracle, in the freedom of God over the course of Nature
which He Himself has ordained and ordered, we are meant to
see chiefly the "All-power" of God in the Biblical sense of the
word; yet the idea of "miracle" is to be understood in its
specifically Biblical sense, and not in a general sense. While in
heathen religions the miraculous power of the "gods" is
expressed in all kinds of curious and sensational ways, in the
Scriptures, both of the Old and of the New Testament, miracles
are more or less closely connected with the history of the
Covenant.^ The God who reveals Himself as the Holy Lord
and as Love, is also He who in this revelation shows Himself as
the Almighty. "Miracle in itself" is no more part of the right
idea of Omnipotence than the idea of "Omnipotence in itself".
The miracle stories of the Bible — apart from some exceptions
— are "theocratic" or "connected with salvation" — that is,
they are means through which the plan of God is realized.

Through this close relation between the revealing and the
redeeming activity of God, however, this idea of Omnipotence
shares in the paradoxical unity of revelation and hiddenness,
which is bound up with the nature of the true revelation. As the
Holiness and the Sovereignty of God merge into Love, which
finds its highest expression in complete self-giving, so is it also
with Omnipotence. God shows His Omnipotence in highest
sovereignty where the impotence of the Crucified, the defeat
of the Son of God, must accomplish the work of revelation and
reconciliation. Yes, here in particular the specific nature of the
true Omnipotence in the Biblical sense, in contrast to all rational
ideas of omnipotence, becomes plain. Even of Omnipotence it is
true to say: "Truly Thou art a God who hidest Thyself. "^
That One who has suffered defeat in the service of God, whose
enemies crucified and mocked Him, One who out of the depths
of dereliction cried aloud to God, could reveal the Almighty

' In the N.T. this is always the case; even in the O.T. it is almost always
so (cf. Eichrodt, op. cit., II, pp. 83 ff.). * Is.. 45: 15.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

power of God — ^what human understanding, or what human
imagination would have conceived such an idea ?

At the beginning of this chapter we said that what distin-
guishes the Omnipotence of God from the potestas ahsoluta
is the self-Hmitation of God through and for His creation. Here,
in the Cross of Christ, where the decisive saving Act takes place,
this self -limitation reaches its climax: God surrenders Himself
in His Son to the contradiction of men, and in so doing reveals
the incomparable character of His Omnipotence as compared
with all that the human mind could conceive. God orders the
course of the world in such a sovereign way that even, and
especially through the maximum of resistance to His will. He
makes it the means of His revelation, and the instrument of
realizing His sovereignty.

There is a Divine Omnipotence which is exercised in com-
pulsion— His work in the realm of Nature, and in that which
man experiences absolutely as Destiny. But there is also a
Divine Omnipotence where man decides in freedom, and this
is His "Omnipotence" proper, that which most clearly ex-
presses His sublime divine Nature: His Nature as the Holy
Lord, and as the Loving Father. God so wills to be "almighty"
over us, that He wins our hearts through His condescension
in His Son, in the Cross of the Son. No other Almighty Power
of God could thus conquer and win our hearts. The heart is
the one sphere which cannot be forced. No love can be forced —
God the Creator makes us so free that even His coercion could
not force us to love Him. But He has indeed created us so free
because He wills to reveal Himself to us as love, because our
free love is the highest that He desires. If we would describe
the Omnipotence of God, we would have to do it in the way
in which Rembrandt depicts the Passion. Everything which
might otherwise be described as "Omnipotence" would have
to be left wholly or half dark, and all the light would be con-
centrated on this One point: the love of the Crucified — which,
as the only power that can do so — subdues our pride, conquers
our fears, and thus wins our hearts. The turning of the rebellious
despairing heart of man to God as the result of His turning
to man, man being dethroned from his position of likeness to
God by the stooping down of God from His Throne — that is
the supreme proof of the divine Omnipotence, because it is His
most difficult work. At its highest the Omnipotence of God is
one with His Holiness and His Love.

Thus so great is the distance between the Biblical idea of

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GOD, THE ALMIGHTY

Omnipotence and the speculative idea of potestas absoluta, that
it is at its greatest where also the freedom of man is at its
height. For man is never so free as where in faith He allows
himself to be apprehended by the love of God. In this faith —
to use Luther's phrase — man becomes a free Lord over all
creation. In this faith there is no coercion, no unwillingness;
here we see how free God wills man to be. And precisely where
this freedom is greatest, God also gives the highest proof of His
royal freedom. Indeed, it is this royal freedom of God that
makes men free. While the potestas absoluta of speculation
excludes freedom to such an extent that it even absorbs into
itself all independent being, all being that is not God Himself,
the true divine Omnipotence includes the highest freedom of
man, the willingness of love.

255

CHAPTER 19

THE OMNIPRESENCE AND THE OMNISCIENCE

OF GOD

The words used to describe the Divine Attributes which are
most important for the Christian Idea of God all begin with
the word "all" ; this is not a linguistic accident. All these words
are closely connected with one another, and each emphasizes a
particular aspect of the absolute freedom of God over the
"All" which He has created. We are almost tempted to say
that the Omnipresence and Omniscience of God are only
special modes of Omnipotence. But it would not be wise to
give way to this temptation, because it springs from the failure
to distinguish sufficiently clearly between the conception of
the attribute of Omnipotence and the concept of the nature
of sovereign self-determining personality. Keeping strictly to
the theological canon we will only speak of that God who
makes His Name known to us, and this will show us that
the theological treatment even of these ideas has been
biased by the speculative method, that is, by the Idea of the
Absolute.

(^)
If we understand the idea of the Omnipresence of God from

the metaphysical and speculative standpoint, then Pantheism

is practically inevitable. The Divine Immanence in His Creation

then becomes the Sole Reality of God, the creatures become

merely "disguises" or "masks" of God;^ this means, not only

that the central idea of the independence and reality of the

creature, but also the specific element in the Biblical doctrine

of the Presence of God has been misunderstood. In order to

estimate this aright, we must begin with the observation that

in the Bible many different kinds — and even different degrees

— of the Presence of God in the world are mentioned. This

means that the idea of the Presence of God loses that neutral

quality which is usually ascribed to it in dogmatic treatises.

Above all, however, it shows clearly its connexion with the

event of revelation. In the witness of the Bible it is not so

much that God merely reveals that He is Present; rather the

' These expressions are derived from Luther, and show that some of his
ideas verge on Pantheism (cf. Blanke, Der verborgene Gott bei Luther).

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OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE

revelation itself is one of the ways in which He is present, and
indeed it is the most important and decisive one.

At first, certainly, we have to begin with the apparently
neutral idea of the Presence of God, that is, with the spatial
conception; as a rule when we speak of "Omnipresence" this is
what is intended. Here, the point is the sublimity of God, and
the fact that He is highly exalted, far above all spatial distance
and separation. While it is inherent in created existence to be
localized — it is "here" and not "there" — it is inherent in the
Being of God that He who appointed this limitation for his
creature Himself transcends it. God "fills" the whole world of
space; there is no place in the world where God is not. The
explanation of the difficulties which this idea causes to our
imagination, does not come within the sphere of the present
work; it belongs rather to a work of Christian philosophy. All
these difficulties arise from the fact that our imagination is
connected with space, but neither for the Christian believer
nor for the thinker are these difficulties of very great moment.
The important point, however, is the fact that in spite of this
absolute infinity of the Divine Being in the Biblical revelation,
the thought of the Bible never even hints at the pantheistic
elimination of the independence and reality of the creature.
God is everywhere, but it is God Himself who gives to this
space, and the creatures it contains, the character of reality,
and of — limited — independence. That which creates a sense of
distance is real for us, but not for God; because He appoints it,
it is real, and because it is He who does so, for Him it does not
exist. In the Old Testament, it is true, there are traces of a
primitive anthropomorphism which thinks of God in the localized
sense, which, therefore, can only imagine that distance — in the
spatial sense — can be transcended by- human methods of
"presence" — that is, by going from one place to another.^ As a
rule, however, the anthropomorphic expressions, God "dwells
in Heaven", "He looketh down upon the children of men" —
have a quite different origin and meaning. They are the expres-
sion of that sovereign glory of God who is Himself the mighty
Lord of the universe, for whom there is no spatial "distance".
The "coming down", the "coming" of God, does not belong to
the sphere of primitive anthropomorphism but is intended to
express the truth that God "intervenes" in the life of history.

■ These are the primitive anthropomorphic expressions on which a rationahst
philosophy loves to base its arguments against the Christian and Biblical Idea
of God: e.g. Gen. 2: i8 ff.; 3: 8; ii : 5, etc.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

The Commandment forbidding the worship of "graven
images" is based on this idea of the subHmity of God exalted
above the realm of space. Only that which is spatially limited
can be seen. The God who is worshipped in an image is localized,
limited by space. The protest against making an image of God
does not only mean that He is unlike the world, but also that
He is not tied to space. "The Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth
not in temples made with hands'',^ any more than He dwells in
a graven image. He indeed fills the heaven, "the heaven of
heavens cannot contain" Him. 2 The earth is only "His foot-
stool",3 but "heaven is His Throne". 4 These phrases are poetical
and childlike expressions of the truth that God is infinitely
High, above all the limitations of space; "heaven" means the
essential Transcendence of Him who is immanent within all
that is created, whose "footstool" is the earth.

And yet, God is not present to all in the same way. Beyond
this extensive Presence of God there is one which is intensive
and qualitative. It is only against the background of this
qualitative differentiation of Presence that the Biblical lan-
guage about the Omnipresence of God is rightly understood.
There is a "distance" and there is a "nearness" of God. One
may be "near" God, and one may be "far" from him. There-
fore God may "come near" and He may "go away", and we
may "come near" to, and "move away" from Him.

We ought not to raise the objection that in these statements
the Bible is only using parabolic language. It is not simply a
parable when Jesus says: "I am come." It is true, of course,
that this phrase, like all human language about God, is para-
bolic. But it does mean a real Presence, just as the promises of
Christ: "Where two dr three are gathered together in My
Name, there am I in the midst of them", 5 or: "I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world"^ mean what they say.
Here a real presence is meant, although it is not a presence
which can be understood in spatial terms. In addition to spatial
distance there are other forms of distance, therefore there are
also other forms of nearness, and other forms of "presence".
There is the distance between the Creator and the creature, the
"inaccessibility" of God. There is the distance between the
sinner and the Holy God, distance from God, man's departure
from God, on the one hand, and the withdrawal of the wrathful

' Acts 17: 24. * I Kings 8: 27.

3 Is. 66: I. 4 Is. 66: i; Ps. 123: i; 115: 3.

5 Matt. 18: 20. 6 Matt. 28: 20.

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OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE

God, on the other hand. This "distance" is removed by revela-
tion and by the estabhshment of communion between God and
man; the final goal of this "movement-towards-us" is the act
of "beholding, face to face", the full unrestricted presence in
person. It is due to our creaturely limitations that we cannot
conceive this revealed Presence otherwise than in spatial terms,
that is, through the idea of "presence", of "being-here" or
"being-with-us", so that when we try to do without this ex-
pression, in losing the expression, we lose the reality itself. ^

Now in order to understand God in accordance with revela-
tion it is of decisive importance that this qualified presence —
which includes equally a qualified non-presence, or distance
from God — is also determined by time. The movement consists
of Space and Time together. Hence the basis of the Biblical
doctrine of God is the "coming" of God. In pagan mysticism, as
well as in metaphysical speculation, the presence of the deity is
always known in the same way. If there be movement, if there
be distance and the removal of distance, then, according to
this view, it is all on the human side, and is due to the limita-
tions of man's knowledge by his senses. True knowledge, then,
is that there is no distance, that there never has been any such
distance, and never will be, that all that separates is only to be
ascribed to our own erroneous and imperfect knowledge. Hence
for mysticism and for philosophical theology there is no idea of
God revealing His Presence, by His own Act.

On the other hand, the presence of God Himself in person,
the Coming of God, is the central article of the Biblical con-
fession of faith. God comes. The whole Bible, the Old, as well
as the New Testament, simply aims at saying this one thing.
Hence the revelation reaches its climax in the coming of the
Messiah (Emmanuel), of whom, in whom, and through whom,
God is "with us", and in whom — through this "coming" — the
Indwelling of the Holy Spirit has been made both possible and
actual. This presence, the Christ in us, is the real goal of the
historical revelation, of the history of the Covenant and of
salvation. Through this "dwelling-in-us" of the Holy Spirit,
that distance, that remoteness from God has been overcome,
which most sharply divides us from God. This is His presence
in salvation. His presence tempered to our need.

Here, too, the distinctive element in the Biblical doctrine of
God becomes evident : the connexion between the Glory of God

' On the significance of the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist for the doctrine of Omnipresence, see below, pp. 298 ff.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

and the Love which wills and preserves the independence of the
creature. For this "nearness" of God comes, it is true, only
through the movement of God, through His self -revelation and
self-communication, but it takes place with full consideration
of the freedom of the creature. For the "nearness" of God
realizes itself only through the repentant and believing accep-
tance of the revelation and the self-communication of God.
"Repent and believe" — that is the condition on which alone
the presence of God in Christ becomes real to man. Without
this movement of the heart Christ does not mean nearness to
God but rather the very opposite, distance from God. "He came
unto His own, and they that were His own received Him not.
But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to
become children of God, even to them that believe on His
Name".^ The Epistle of James has given clearest expression to
this personal correspondence, to this Divine movement to
which the human movement corresponds — indeed so strongly
does he put it that it might easily be misunderstood — when he
says: "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you."^

Indeed, in the negative sense, even the nearness of God,
which here means the distance, is primarily dependent on man,
not on God. Sin, apostasy from God, is distance from God, for
which man, not God, must bear the responsibility, even though
God, moved thereto by the sin of man, withdraws Himself
from him, by "hiding His Face", in that He sets His wrath
between Himself and man. The wrath of God is the reaction of
the Divine Holiness to the apostasy of man from His Creator.
Thus the conception of the Presence of God is qualified as
personal in a twofold sense, and therefore is also determined
historically in a twofold sense. In accordance with the act of
apostasy the "becoming present" of God also must be an act, a
history, a quite definite historical event which corresponds to
the universal event of sin, but one which is to be appropriated
by the individual, although it is universal.

Now that we have reached the end of our course of reflection,
we perceive that even that apparently neutral idea of Omni-
presence, namely, the exalted position of God above Space,
thus that which is usually meant by Omnipresence, is not the
starting-point but the end, in so far, namely, as the right under-
standing of that exaltation of God above spatial distance can
only be fully understood from the standpoint of the God who
makes His Presence known to us in this revelation of Himself.
' John i: 11-12. ^ James 4: 8.

260

OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE

Even that Presence is presence in revelation and in grace ; if not
in the historical sense, then in the "pre-historical" sense of
revelation and grace in general. God's Omnipresence is not only
His sublime height above Space, but far beyond this it is His
gracious presence with His Creation. As the French speak of
making an acte de presence, so the Presence of God is an acte de
presence of God, a gracious "Being-with-the-creation" of the
Creator which cannot be taken for granted.

In our effort to think out the idea of Omnipresence, therefore,
we have come to the conclusion that even this idea is insepar-
ably connected with the event of the revelation of the Holy and
Merciful God, and indeed, that in the last resort, it is one with
Him. For the perfect Presence of God is identical with His
perfect revelation and self -disclosure. In other words, we can
only understand the Biblical teaching about the Presence of
God along the following line: that the whole of the story of
salvation, the Creation, the Fall, the Old and the New Covenant,
the Fulfilment, is reflected in the various "modes" in which the
Presence is made known. In all this, the spatial Presence of
God lies on the outermost fringe of the Divine Mystery, and is
already filled with a richer content in the sphere of the Know-
ledge of Creation. God's Presence in His creatures is more than
His mere existence ; it is the abiding basis of their being, their
life, and indeed of their life as it is determined in particular
forms. God is present in a stone otherwise than in a plant,
differently again in an animal, and again in man quite differently
from His Presence in all His other creatures — quite apart from
sin and redemption. God's Presence, in whatever form, is always
the principle of the possibility of existence, and of the — very
varying — fullness of being of that which has been created.
These are thoughts which should be developed further in a
Christian ontology ; for they throw light on a wholly new aspect
of the problem of being, and of the planes of existence as a
whole.

(2)

No less significant is the difference between thought deter-
mined by revelation, and by speculation, in the understanding
of the divine Omniscience. This idea is intimately related with
that of Omnipresence, as indeed the locus classicus of this doc-
trine, the 139th Psalm, shows — indeed, we might even say that
it reveals the ideal aspect of Omnipresence. Hence from the
very outset we have to expect that here, too, we shall have to

261

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

reckon with a differentiation of different kinds of divine know-
ledge. First of all, here, too, there is an apparently neutral kind
of knowledge, one which includes equally every kind of know-
ing ; the fact that God knows everything. When Schleiermacher
maintains that "divine thinking is the same as the divine wiH",i
when he thus equates Omnipotence and Omniscience, from the
point of view of the thought of the Bible we must be ready to
protest. For behind this assertion there lies the pantheistic idea
of the Absolute, which makes the independence of the creature
an illusion. If the creature is real it is other than God, then we
must make a very clear distinction between the Divine thinking
which creates and that which reflects His activity. The fact
that God knows about His creature is not the same truth as
that He creates it. He knows about it as a created reality, which
stands over against Him. He knows of an action of the creature
which is not His own action. He knows above all about the free
activity of that creature to which He has granted the freedom
to decide for himself.

But the Divine Knowledge is not bound to Time and Space,
to perception and inference, as ours is. All stands in eternal
presence before the eyes of God — and yet as a knowledge of
something which is not Himself. The activity of the creature
which takes place in freedom is enclosed within this knowledge.
From the foreknowledge of God men have drawn the false
conclusion that the creature has no freedom. Augustine already
proved that this was a wrong conclusion. ^ We certainly can only
know beforehand to the extent in which something does not
happen in freedom; for our knowledge is bound to Time and
Space. The future can only be known by us in so far as it is
contained in the present, as it necessarily follows from that
which now is. The freedom of the Other is the border-line of
our knowledge. For God this limitation does not exist. His
knowledge of the future is not a knowledge based upon some-
thing that exists already in the present, but it is a knowledge
which lies outside the boundaries of temporal limitations.

As we know the present not only as something that is neces-
sary, but also as something that is accidental, contingent, so
also God knows the future as something contingent. The future
stands equally directly before Him as the present stands before
us. God knows that which takes place in freedom in the future
as something which happens in freedom. This kind of knowing
is beyond our powers of imagination, and it is unintelligible;

' Glaubenslehre, Section 55, i. * De Civ. Dei, V, 10.

262

OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE

but it is directly implied in the idea of the sovereign freedom
of God, of the self-sufficient Personality in which He reveals
Himself to us.

Now, however, the Biblical testimony to revelation shows
that this neutral, "objective" ability to "know everything" is
not the actual subject of this article of faith. Here, too, where
the Knowledge of God is mentioned, as in the case of His Power
and His Presence, everything is viewed in the closest connexion
with His aim in revelation and in redemption. Certainly, God
knows everything that happens in the world of Nature — He
knows "the ordinances of the heavens";^ He knows the "rising
and the going down of the sun";^ He knows "the balancings of
the clouds" ;3 — but all this is not at the centre of the Biblical
point of view, but at the circumference; at the centre there
stands all that refers to the realization of His purpose for the
Kingdom. God's knowledge is not objective and impersonal
but "interested". "I know the thoughts that I think toward
you";4 thus "saith the Lord, who maketh these things known
from the beginning of the world". 5 "In Thy book were all my
members written . . . when as yet there was none of them."^
His knowledge is the expression of His sympathy, His care,
His planning,? and His love. He "knows what we have need of
before we ask Him"; He also knows the day and the hour of
the Parousia.8

This becomes very plain in the mode of knowledge which we
call "knowing". When the Bible says that God "knows" any-
one it means that He loves him. "The Lord knoweth them that
are His. "9 When He calls a man by name He has chosen him,
as is the case with one whose name "is written in the Lamb's
book of life".^° The idea of "knowing" merges into that of
"election". Yahweh says, through Amos, "You only have I
known of all the families of the earth."" This "knowing" means
being known as a member of His Kingdom. Hence the meaning
is always a positive one. It is said of one who is rejected that
God "knows him not".^^ This "knowing", then, is the expression
of His will for communion, of His electing, generous grace and
love.

We could, of course, try to explain this Biblical phrase as
peculiar to the primitive life of community, where to "know"

I Job 38: 33. » Ps. 104: 19. 3 Job 37: 16.

4 Jer. 29: II. 5 Acts 15: 18. ^ Ps. 139: 16.

7 Matt. 6: 8. « Mark 13: 32. 9 2 Tim. 2: 19.

"> Rev. 21: 27; Dan. 12: i. " Amos 3: 2.
" Matt. 25: 12; cf. Ps. 18: 44.

263

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

anyone is primarily connected with the mutual familiarity
within the primitive society. We still have a relic of this phrase-
ology in our everyday speech. To "know" a person means that
we recognize him as belonging to our community. But to do
this would be to miss the chief point in the idea of the Bible,
that is, the sovereign freedom and unfathomable love which
are expressed in this "knowing", and its creative character. All
whom the Lord "knows" as "his own" He makes "His own".
In this sense, and in this connexion, certainly Schleiermacher's
phrase: "with God to think is to effect (something)", is apt.
Here "to know" is the same as the eternal purpose which pre-
cedes the Creation and gives it its direction.

Hence Paul is able to say "that if any man loveth God, the
same is known of Him".^ For our love to God is the fulfilment
of the destiny which God has given us in His love. We under-
stand this connexion best if we introduce that middle term
which, even in the Biblical testimony, lies in the centre between
election (being known) and love: the idea of "the Calling",
Man is what he is — as man — as one who is "called". The
ground of our personal existence is the Call of God, the call of
love, to love. This call gives us our responsibility, and in this
responsibility our freedom. Therefore the fact that God knows
us, and knows about us, always means two things: an expression
of sacred responsibility, and an expression of the love of God.
Our true freedom and our true humanity therefore are realized
where we freely experience the call of God, and His free and
generous love in Jesus Christ. Through Him we become His
own, whom He knows. His own, whom He has chosen from all
eternity.

This knowledge which God has of us, on this highest plane of
the witness of revelation, is the very opposite of all neutral
objectivity, hence, too, it is the very opposite of that kind of
knowledge which simply means to "know about . . .", it is the
highest, freest, creative act of the loving God. But it is at the
same time a "knowing" which claims from us — to the highest
degree — our own free act of decision. It is therefore not some-
thing "effected" in Schleiermacher's sense, but something
"effected" sui generis, which both establishes, and claims, the
highest independence of the creature as liberty to make deci-
sions. Thus once more the Biblical idea of an Attribute scatters
all rational and metaphysical definitions to the four winds like
chaff. This connexion between knowing, creating, loving and

• I Cor. 8: 3.
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OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE

choosing cannot be discovered along the hne of speculative
thought. This "knowing" is rather the highest point that is,
and can be, reached in the knowledge of faith which is granted
to us in the revelation of the Holy and Merciful God.

Once more, however, the apparently neutral statement about
the Omniscience of God from which we started is illuminated
afresh, and is placed within the context of the highly qualified
or qualitative statement of the doctrine of Election. Even the
way in which God knows about all things, the things of nature
and their order, is, when seen more closely, not a purely neutral
objective process. Even this Omniscience of His is enclosed
within His loving interest; it, too, is connected with His com-
prehensive plan for His Kingdom and for Redemption. For
these things, too, have all been created in the Logos, in the Son,
and "In Him all things cohere ".^ But even here God does not
know these things in a cool, objective way; His knowledge is
not that of a record ofhce, but it is the knowledge of Him who
wills to glorify Himself in this Creation, and to have fellowship
with it. The ancient contradiction between thinking and being,
knowing and reality, is here overcome; for all that is, is because
it is known and willed by God. But what He thus knows, be-
cause it is not merely known, but also willed, and indeed willed
as something which is an integral part of His saving purpose, is
not an illusion, and its independence is not illusory but real,
and is to the highest extent respected by Him, the Creator.

I Col. 1 : 17.

265

CHAPTER 20

THE ETERNITY, UNCHANGINGNESS,
FAITHFULNESS, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

The Omnipresence of God means His exaltation above space;
His Eternity and His Unchangeableness mean His exaltation
above time. Once more we raise the question: Are we not here
dealing with a statement about the Being of God in Himself,
not merely with an "attribute", that is, with a statement con-
cerning the Nature of God in view of the created universe? Is
not God in Himself the Eternal just as He is the Lord and the
Loving One ? Is not the Idea that God is Eternal and Unchange-
able already implied in the idea of His Sovereignty, of that
Being which is a se, which is not derived from any previous
source, and, therefore, can have no beginning and no end?
This question, too, confronts us with a decision of the greatest
significance. The question at issue is this: Is Time created or
not ? Just as the idea of God as the Almighty, understood as a
description of being, equates Omnipotence and "potestas abso-
luta" , and leaves no room for the independence of the creature,
so the idea of Eternity, understood in the same way, carries
with it the consequence that Time becomes an illusion, the
"ju?) 6V" of Platonism.

As the Idea of Omnipotence, conceived as ahsoluta potestas,
has slipped into Christian theology through the speculations of
Platonism and Neo-Platonism, so also the Platonic idea of
eternity, which understands eternity as timelessness, is a legacy
of Greek thought. Its starting-point is the timelessness of the
Ideas. Truth, in the sense of the truth of the Ideas, has no
relation with Time. Where the Ideas are concerned the question
"Since when?" or "Till when?" has no meaning. Twice two
"are" four, in timeless truth, in an objectivity for which time
has no significance. It is "static" truth. This static truth now
becomes the model for the theological idea of eternity. It
stands in the closest connexion with the speculative idea of
the Absolute. This "Eternity" is the negation of Time, as
the Absolute is the negation of the finite. It makes Time an
illusion, which has no share in timeless truth. Time must be
depreciated, denied, as the creaturely must be depreciated and
denied. The eternal godhead of Plato has no relation — or at

266

THE ETERNITY . . . AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

least a merely negative one — to all that "is becoming" within
Time.

Within the sphere of the Christian revelation the idea of
Eternity is entirely different. It can only be understood from
the statement that Time has been created. ^ But because Time
has been created, it is not negative, but it is positive, like all
the divine Creation. The temporal as such is not intended to be
regarded negatively: the negative view only applies to that
"time" which has been altered by death and sin; just as we do
not regard the Creation as such, from a negative point of view,
but it is only the created universe which has been perverted by
sin and death which is to be regarded negatively. It was the
Platonist Origen who lit upon the idea of conceiving Time as
the product of the Fall, as it was he, too, who placed the bodily
state of the creature under the same negation. ^ This way of
thinking is not in accordance with the Biblical understanding
of revelation, where Time is conceived as the Temporal, which
is a creaturely phenomenon, and thus belongs to the created
universe. God's attitude towards Time and growth is not nega-
tive but positive. God gives Time, 3 He posits, or "launches"
time from Himself. He wills that Time should exist, just as He
wills that the creature should exist; He wills creaturely "be-
coming". He wills that in Time something shall become ripe,
that something shall be fulfilled. God's purpose is not the
negation of time, 4 not timelessness, but a state of being in
which the full significance of time is conserved. In the sphere of
the mathematical, timeless Truth of the Ideas nothing happens,
and nothing is meant to happen ; mathematics, ideas as a whole,
are an abstraction. But in the sphere of Creation something
does happen, and is intended to happen; for the Creation is a
reality established by God.

Hence the relation of God to Time and to temporal develop-
ment is not negative but positive. God is infinitely "interested"
in the time-process. It is precisely this which distinguishes the
Living God from the absolute Godhead of speculative thought.
God takes part in temporal happenings, indeed He even

' Only thus is it possible to say 77^6 rwv odcbvoiv (i Cor. 2:7); for the direct
evidence, cf. Heb. i: 2.

» Deprinc. Ill, 5, 4. 3 Thus explicitly. Rev. 2: 21.

4 Cf. W. Schmidt, Zeit und Ewigkeit, p. 299. The important work of Cull-
mann, Christus und die Zeit (which appeared just before this book went to
press) , rightly emphasizes the positive valuation of Time in the New Testament ;
on the other hand, it retains the unresolved contradiction between the thought
that God is Lord of Time, and that He Himself has a share in the temporal
form.

267

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

involves Himself in the temporal; He reveals Himself in his-
torical time; He becomes Man. God is not, as in Platonism and
Stoicism, a deos dtrados, but He is One who is infinitely con-
cerned. He follows the creaturely happenings in the movement
of Time with an absolute interest, with a Holy and Merciful
"sympathy". The tension which indwells human life, the
tension of being directed towards a goal, is also a divine ten-
sion. It is the tension of One who says: "I am come to send fire
upon the earth; and how am I straitened until it be kindled. "^

Hence God the Holy and the Loving One is — in a certain
sense — not unchangeable. If it be true that there really is such
a fact as the Mercy of God and the Wrath of God, then God,
too, is "affected" by what happens to His creatures. He is not
like that divinity of Platonism who is unconcerned, and there-
fore unmoved, by all that happens upon the earth, but goes His
way in heaven without looking round, without taking into
consideration what is happening on earth. God does "look
round" — He does care what happens to men and women — He
is concerned about the changes upon earth. He alters His
behaviour in accordance with the changes in men. God "reacts"
to the acts of men, and in that He "reacts". He changes. God
says: "I will not cause my countenance to fall upon you."^ He
"hideth His Face", 3 He withdraws Himself — and again: He
draws near. He discloses Himself, He "makes His face to shine
upon thee ".4 The strongest expression in the Bible for this fact
that God "changes" is the one which says that "The Lord
repented concerning this". 5 Is not this a gross anthropomorph-
ism? But if we have once seen what lies behind this objection
to "anthropomorphism", and the end to which it leads — when
we have perceived that this objection is not only raised against
the phrase: "God repented Himself", but that it is directed
against all expressions which suggest personal being, and that
it nullifies not merely the idea of person, but every definite
statement about God, omnis determinatio est negatio — then
from the outset we shall hear these objections to the Biblical
phrase "God repented Himself" with hesitation and mistrust.
Does it not belong to the same category as the objection to
God's "jealousy", which ultimately culminates in a denial of
His Holy will as Lord, of His will to be the Sole Sovereign?
Behind the expression "God repented Himself", there lies, in

' Luke 12: 49. » Jer. 3: 12 (R.V. marg.).

3 Job 34: 29; cf. Is. 64: 7; 54: 8. 4 Num. 6: 25.

5 Amos 7: 3, 6; cf. Jer. 42: 10; i Sam. 15: 11, etc.

268

THE ETERNITY . . . AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

point of fact, nothing less than the fundamental Biblical idea
of the relation between God and the world: namely, that God
wills the independence of the creature, and therefore, since
He limits Himself for his sake, He enters into the life of His
creatures. God enters into the activity of man, and acts accord-
ingly. There is a personal correspondence. God's behaviour
alters according to the behaviour of man. For this very reason
He is the Living God, in contrast to the divinity of abstract
thought.

If the expression "God repented Himself" arouses hostility,
then, on the other hand, the assurance that God hears prayer^
shows the significance of this hostility very clearly. The God of
revelation is the God who hears prayer. The God of Platonism
does not hear prayer. To hear prayer means to be concerned
about that which ascends to God from the world; it means that
God is interested in what happens upon earth. The Biblical
revelation confronts us with this tension, namely : that we may
say of God that He is the Sovereign Lord, from whose will all
proceeds, and also, that He is the Merciful God who hears
prayer. In so far as He hears prayer, in so far as "He repents
Himself", in so far as He is concerned about man, God is not
the Unchangeable. He is not Unchangeable because, and in so
far as, He has created Time, and takes part in temporal hap-
penings.

But this is only one side of the question. The fact that He
shares in what happens upon earth does not, in any sense,
mean that idea which is so dear to modern man : the God who
"becomes". The idea of a "God who becomes" is a mythological
and unreal idea. Were God Himself One who is "becoming" then
everything would founder in the morass of relativism. We can
measure nothing by changing standards ; changeable norms are
no norms at all ; a God who is constantly changing is not a God
whom we can worship, He is a mythological Being for whom
we can only feel sorry. The God of the Bible is eternally Un-
changeable. He shares in Time as the One who is high above
the Temporal. He is the Same from everlasting to everlasting,
the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega; He is the
Lord of Time. The Kingdom of God comes; and God is infinitely
concerned about its Coming. But He Himself stands high above
the sphere of becoming; for Time is His creation. God stands
above Time because He is its Creator and Lord. The God who
creates Time, who makes a beginning, who "allows" time, and

' Put most bluntly in Luke i8: i if.
269

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

who will one day say: "Now it is ended!" — this God is not
Himself involved in the Time-process.

We cannot understand this without reflection upon the
Divine Agape. God's love is not like Eros ; in His loving He seeks
nothing for Himself. His loving is not like that of Eros, "Son
of Penia", of need. His love does not arise out of a vacuum but
out of fullness. So also His sharing in Time does not mean His
dependence upon Time, but it is the expression of His sovereign
freedom. He gives Himself to Time as He gives time to us.
The fact that He is affected by events within Time is not the
result of dependence, but is solely the result of His free love.
So, too. His interest in the happenings within the sphere of
Time is also an act of His freedom, of His Love and Holi-
ness. He gives Himself to Time because He wills to fulfil the
Temporal.

His Eternity, then, is something quite different from time-
lessness : it is a sovereign rule over Time and the temporal sphere,
the freedom of Him who creates and gives us Time. As for the
Creator, the limitations and laws of the created world do not
limit Him, because it is He who posits them and creates them,
so also for Him the barriers of the temporal — the separation
into past, present, and future — do not exist. God includes and
comprehends Time within His Presence ; He does not eliminate
it, but He fulfils it. God's Being is not timeless; but it is full of
time, fulfilling time; all that is temporal is present in Him in
the same way, or, to put it more correctly: He is present in the
Temporal as a whole as He wills. If we take seriously the idea
that God has created Time, that Time "lies within His hands", ^
that He gives Time, then we see that the statement about the
Eternity of God is concerned wholly and entirely with His
relation to created Time, and thus that it is a concept of
"quality", not of "being". God's Nature is not Eternity, but
God's Nature is Sovereignty, which, as such, is not related to
Time. The eternity of God — this simply means His Lordship
over the Time which He has created. There is no better expres-
sion for this truth than that of the Psalmist: "For a thousand
years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past."^ All
statements about God's eternal Nature lead inevitably to the
Platonic idea of timelessness. The question of the temporal or
the non-temporal cannot touch the divine Nature. The most we
could say would be to speak of God as above time — were it not
that this expression suggests a connexion with the idea of

' Ps. 31: 16. » Ps. 90: 4.

270

THE ETERNITY . . . AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

timelessness. We will simply confine ourselves to saying that
the idea of eternity means the sovereignty of God over Time
which He has created ; we shall then remain true to the Biblical
line of thought, which combines the idea of the freedom of God
above Time with that of His entry into Time, just as it com-
bines the idea of Omnipotence — as the sovereignty of God over
the world which He has created — with that of His freedom,
and at the same time of His free self-limitation.

(2)

In the Bible itself the idea of the faithfulness of God is of
fundamental significance, but in the traditional doctrine of the
Divine Attributes it plays almost no part. This is not accidental;
but the cause is similar to that which we suggested about the
traditional conception of Omnipotence. Where, namely, the
speculative idea of the Absolute, with its timelessness and
unchangingness, has taken the place of faith in the Living God,
there is actually .nothing left to say about the faithfulness of
God. This word is now regarded as only a popular and imagina-
tive expression for that unchanging quality which is involved
in the idea of the Eternal. Truths concerning ideas are un-
changeable; to speak of their "faithfulness" is meaningless. If
we may put it so — the truth of ideas can only be unchangeable.
It has no relation to happenings in time, it has nothing to do
with the temporal process, it does not "react" to it. Its un-
changeableness is obvious, as part of its very nature. So many
theologians speak about the Unchangingness of God as of an
abstract, intellectual truth, because they are not thinking of
the Living God of revelation, but in terms of the "Esse" , the
Absolute, Substance, etc. The God of philosophical speculation
is "per definitionem immutabilis" .

The whole situation is quite different where the Living God
of revelation is concerned. The Living God does not, like the
divinity of Plato, stand above the changing temporal process,
but He enters into it, indeed He even steps into History. As
the Holy and the Loving One He takes part in the historical
process, with an infinite interest in what men do and leave
undone. If He directs His will towards the realization of His
purpose with an infinitely holy passion of wrath and love, then
also through these events He is determined in His will.
Hence His faithfulness, the holding fast to His plan of creation,
and its final accomplishment, is very far from obvious. The
Biblical language about the faithfulness of God is therefore

271

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

everywhere the expression of a great and joyful amazement j^
to the Prophets and Apostles the certainty of this faithfulness
is the most important thing that they have to say, the new
good tidings which they have been empowered to proclaim to
the world. Thus once more, in the doctrine of the Divine Attri-
butes, we see how great a gulf extends between a knowledge of
God which springs from speculation, and that which arises
from revelation.

In order to understand this aright, we need to go back to that
dialectic which was disclosed to us in the knowledge of the
Holiness of God. The Holiness of God can indeed, precisely in
its unconditional constancy and logic, develop in two opposite
directions : as wrath, which destroys resistance to the Divine
Will, and as Mercy, which overcomes resistance by means of
incomprehensible love. The prophets of Israel learned to reckon
with the possibility that God might reject and annihilate His
Chosen People. ^ In virtue of their divine commission they had
to proclaim to their people this possibility first of all as a
threat, and then as certain judgment. 3 In this situation the
philosophical idea of the unchangingness of God was com-
pletely meaningless; what mattered to them was to know
whether it was the wrath of God or His mercy which would
determine the destiny of Israel. The same applies, in a still
more radical way, to the New Testament. Here what is at issue
is not merely death or life, deliverance or destruction, but
eternal death and eternal life, absolute ruin and absolute
salvation. Both could be deduced equally from the fact that
God is unchangeable. Because God wills the Good unchangeably.
He must destroy evil; because God wills the Good, He must,
by grace, change the hearts of the wicked. He must lead them to
conversion and redemption. Hence there is no point in speaking
of the Unchangingness of God. It can only seem to be part of a
satisfying knowledge of God if one ignores the actual situation,
and the reality of the relation of God to this actual situation.

The Biblical witnesses, however, do not ignore these two
facts : the revelation of the Living God points to them directly,
and in this situation revelation makes known something new
and unheard-of, something which could never have been fore-
seen : namely, that God is faithful, that for those who trust in
this faithfulness, deliverance, not deserved ruin, not the
righteous judgment of condemnation, is certain. 4 Thus this

' Ps. 138: 2; Is. 49: 7. ' Hosea i: 9; 4: 6.

3 Is. 5: 5; 6: 10. 4 1 Cor. i: 9; Hosea 2: 20; Rom. 3: 21 fE.

272

THE ETERNITY . . . AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

faithfulness of God is nothing which could have been predicted
from our knowledge of His Nature; it is a divine decision
which answers the false decision of man, which for its part
could not be deduced from the nature of man. Hence the faith-
fulness of God — if we may put it so — is the historical quality of
God which can only be known from the historical revelation.
This word "faithfulness" gives the answer to that otherwise
unanswerable question : How are we to think of God in view of
this twofold possibility: how does God Himself solve this
dialectic of Holiness and Love ? Only from this knowledge of the
faithfulness of God is the Biblical idea of faith to be under-
stood, namely, as a trust which responds to this faithfulness.

Thus the idea of the faithfulness of God shows very clearly
the fundamental contrast between the philosophical doctrine
of God and the Biblical doctrine of God based on revelation.
All speculative knowledge of God is not only non-historical
because it is not related to the historical revelation, but also
because it has no relation to the real situation of man. It wills
only to work with constants, with that which it is "in accord-
ance with nature" to predicate of God and man. But the
Biblical doctrine starts from the point that something has been
altered in that which is "in accordance with nature". Some-
thing has happened, man has fallen; he has become a sinner.
And this historical element, this which is not in "accordance
with nature", this which is not a "constant", which cannot be
understood by means of any general conception, is now decisive
in our relation with God. This has indeed altered our relation
with God; that which used to be positive has now become
negative. Hence in view of this historically determined situa-
tion all natural, timeless, ideal conceptions of truth fail. Quite
simply expressed, what matters is how God "reacts" to the new
situation, how He behaves to man who has become sinful.
Nothing can be said about this from the point of view of
human nature, because the human relation with God has been
destroyed. The gravity of this situation is shown in the fact
that man has lost all power to know himself, that God's dis-
closure— in historical terms — is necessary, if we are to know
the one thing that matters, namely, how God will react in this
new historical situation, created by man. This disclosure has to
take place in the shape of an event, it must be historical; the
irrational outbreak of sin must be matched by an equally
irrational act of self-manifestation on the part of God — or
there will be no answer.

273

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

The fact that this answer did come, and that it came in such
a way that, in spite of the irrational outbreak of sin, the Ori-
ginal element still persisted — that is what is meant by the
Biblical language about the faithfulness of God. In spite of sin
God held firmly to His plan of Creation, to His aim of self-
communication — on the one presupposition, that man will
believe this of Him, that he will trust to this incomprehensible
faithfulness, and indeed that he will trust and believe because
God says so and proclaims it.^ In the New Testament, and
especially in the teaching of the Apostle Paul,^ this state of
affairs, and indeed precisely the relation to that dialectic which
lies in the nature of the Holiness of God, is expressed by the
idea of the "revelation of the righteousness of God", 3 and that
of the"righteousness of faith". 4 1 must, however, briefly mention
another idea which is particularly important for the under-
standing of the "historical attribute" of the faithfulness of
God, namely, the long-suffering of God.

This idea represents, so to speak, the highest point of con-
trast with the abstract and speculative Idea of God, since it
contains the element of Time as its main characteristic. It
must therefore appear completely irrational, and the critics in
particular, scorn it as an "anthropomorphism". In reality it
has no connexion with "anthropomorphism", but it expresses
the truth that God has an infinite concern for the time-process.
The long-suffering of God is nothing less than the possibility of
history.') Without detracting from His Holiness God could
make an end of sinful man. But if an end must be made, if the
book of History must be closed, and the hour of judgment
must strike, then why not now'^ Why not much earlier than
this? Why not at the beginning of sinful humanity? To this
question there is no other answer than this, that God's Mercy
gives this breathing-space to the human race in order to give it
"a last chance", the possibility of repentance and amendment. ^

The long-suffering of God, however, is closely connected with
that "historical" answer in which God Himself answers the
question which — from the human standpoint — could not be
answered : How does He feel towards sinful humanity ? that is,
with the historical revelation of the long-suffering of God. This
historical revelation is only accomplished where God shows His
Mercy in such a way that His Holiness is not misunderstood,

• 2 Cor. I : i8 ff. J Cf. also i John i : 9.

3 Rom. 3: 21. 4 Rom. 4: 13.

5 Cf. Rom. q: 22 and Gen. 6: 13 ff. ' Rom. 2: 4.

274

THE ETERNITY . . . AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

thus where the revelation of His forgiving and redeeming love
cannot be misused by human frivolity, and the revelation of
wrathful Holiness does not lead to despair — in that very
revelation of the "righteousness of God" which takes place in
the Cross of Christ. The long-suffering of God extends the
time of the possibility of decision within history to that point
where man can perceive the full answer of God to the question
which through the Fall was unanswerable. ^ In the full sense,
here alone does faith become possible, faith which reposes
upon the amazing faithfulness of God, that faith which
"justifies".

(3)

Like the Faithfulness of God, so also the Righteousness of
God signifies the constancy of the Divine Will, and therefore, at
least in the actual use of language in the Bible, can often
scarcely be distinguished from the latter. Now, however, we
must make it quite clear to ourselves that the idea of righteous-
ness in revelation (as a whole) does not coincide with the
content of the Biblical word for righteousness. When we speak
of the Righteousness of God — if we are not Biblical scholars —
what we mean is something quite different from that which
was intended by the pious Israelite, or the Christian of Jewish
ancestry in the Early Church when he used this word. This
raises a problem for theology which can scarcely be solved to
our satisfaction. In the language of the present day there is no
exact equivalent for the Biblical word "ts'daqa" or St/catoawi^.
If we translate it — as indeed we must — by "righteousness",
then if we leave it thus, without a commentary, it gives a mis-
leading rendering. If we say: God is "righteous", we mean
something entirely different from the real meaning of these
two Biblical words.

The Righteousness of God in the Old Testament means the
constancy of God's Will in view of His Purpose and Plan for
Israel. Hence this Old Testament word "righteousness" con-
tains meanings which at the present time we would never
dream of trying to express by this word: Because God is
Righteous or just He helps, ^ He saves, 3 He forgives sin. 4
Likewise the Old Testament idea, when applied to man,
contains meanings which our word can never express: the
"righteous man" is the man who is in covenant with God, he is

I Rom. 3: 25. » Zech. 9: 9; Ps. 145: 17.

3 Cf. Ps. 31: 2; Is. 45: 21. 4 I John i: 9.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

merciful,^ kindly ;2 in contrast to the godless man, he is truly
religious. 3

This specifically Biblical idea of Righteousness reaches its
zenith in the Pauline doctrine of Justification. When Paul
speaks of the Righteousness of God, the SLKoaoavvr} ^eou,4 he
does not mean what everyone who hears the present German
word — and this applies to many other languages as well —
understands by it. The "Righteousness of God", in the sense
in which it is used in the Epistle to the Romans, can only be
understood as the fulfilment of the Old Testament word ts'daqa,
namely, the working out of God's purpose in His gracious
dealing with us in Jesus Christ. 5 In Jesus Christ God realizes
His will to save ; thus God achieves His purpose, and comes into
His own. Through the Atonement on the Cross of Christ God
realizes in sinful man, and in sinful humanity. His Holy and
Merciful plan for humanity as a whole. That is the "Righteous-
ness" of God^ in Jesus Christ. Hence it is not only futile, but
dangerous — from a mistaken idea of loyalty to the Bible — to
try to regain for our word "righteousness" this rich wealth
of meaning, which is moreover quite alien to our usual line of
thought in this connexion; this is a futile proceeding because
it can never really succeed ; it is dangerous, because it inevitably
leads to continual misunderstanding.?

The translator of the Bible may continue to render SLKocLoavvrj
deov as the "righteousness of God", leaving it to the Biblical
commentator to explain later on what seems at first difficult
to understand — but the dogmatic theologian has a different
task. When he speaks of the "Righteousness" of God, he must
begin where the modern conception of "righteousness" begins
to-day. He is dealing with the idea of a "righteousness" which
certainly does not forgive sins, but punishes them; which
does not give, but which makes demands ; which does not place
"grace" before "right" or "justice", but — on the contrary —
stresses the right of the Lord and Owner to His own possession,
the rights of God over His own creation. This conception,
which is what we mean by "righteousness" (understood as
"justice") is also found in the Bible; indeed, this, too, is

• Ps. 112: 4; Prov. 12: 10. 2 Prov. 21: 26.

3 Ps. 92: 13; i: 5. 4 Rom. i: 17; 3: 21 ff.; 10: 3.

5 Cf. the excellent article on diKrj in the N.T. Worterbuch, by G. Schrenk.

* Rom. 3: 21 ff. ; 2 Cor. 5: 21.

7 The linguistic problem would be much easier to solve if, as in English, we
had the two words "justice" and "righteousness"; the former corresponds to
some extent to the narrower modern idea, and the latter to the more compre-
hensive Biblical idea of "righteousness".

276

THE ETERNITY . . . AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

expressed by the phrase, the "Righteousness of God/'^ but it
constitutes a subordinate element within the paradoxically
rich idea of ts'daqa, SiKatoavvq. When we speak of the
Righteousness of God, we mean the constancy of the divine will,
which in the Law demands the Good, and punishes the trans-
gression of the Law, dealing with man strictly "as he deserves".
For this is the essence of Righteousness (or justice) — of that
which everyone means by "justice": the rule of equality
according to "desert" — giving every man his due; for instance,
equal wages for equal work, equal punishment for equal
wrong-doing, equal treatment in the same circumstances. A
"just" man is one who logically and impeccably acts according
to this rule ; thus the Just (or Righteous) God would be primarily
the God from whose will this rule is derived, and whose own
dealings are the expression of this rule.

The question, then, in this connexion — that of the Christian
doctrine of God — in contrast to that which is treated within
the exegesis of Scripture — is this: Is God, in this contemporary
use of the word, "just" or "righteous"?

May we, and should we, state this to be an attribute of God
on the basis of His revelation ? Is this principle of equal dealing
according to equal merit really derived from the Will of God ?

This question must be answered, quite plainly, in the affir-
mative. The righteousness of God in judgment, in particular,
which is an integral element in the body of revelation, is of this
kind. God punishes like the just Judge,^ without respect of
persons. 3 There is a correspondence of guilt and retribution
which is based on equality. "God is not mocked: for whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap. "4 The idea of Divine
Judgment, which is the presupposition of the central message
of the Bible — deliverance from condemnation — is determined
by this idea of righteousness. Here as elsewhere behind the
idea of Judgment lies the idea of the Law, according to which
judgment and the idea of the divine demand is the natural
consequence to which the law gives expression. 5 But the demand
of God is based upon His Sovereignty. Because God is Lord,
because the creation derives its life from Him alone, thus
because it belongs wholly to Him, His will is its law. The Law,
the "lex aeterna", which precedes all legislation according to
the historic revelation, is given with the Creation. Since man
derives his life from God, he also receives his orders regarding

' Cf. I Sam. 26: 23; Ps. 72: 2. » Ps. 72; 2.

3 I Peter i: 17. 4 Gal. 6: 7. 5 Rom. 3: 19.

277

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the lines on which he is to use this Hfe according to the will
of Him who gives it. The gift comes first; but the gift implies
the task; the generous word comes first, but the generous word
is followed immediately by the word which makes demands on
man. God claims man for Himself. He wills that man should be,
and live, and act — both in his own life and in his dealings with
others — in a particular way, and not otherwise. And this will
of God, which demands so much of man, is unchangeable and
immutable. This is the divine Righteousness.

Righteousness, therefore, is simply the Holiness of God,
as it is expressed when confronted with the created world — the
creation which has been created in and for freedom. The
Nature of God which is Holy, manifests itself over against His
creature as the divine quality of Righteousness. Behind the
irrevocable demand of the Law stands the Holy Will, but the
expression of this Holiness over against the creature is the
constancy of the divine demand — the Law — and the conse-
quence of its assertion, judgment and punishment, and this is
the Righteousness of God, understanding the world in its
present-day sense. Because God means His demand seriously,
and emphasizes it without any intention of ever revoking it —
this is why there is judgment and punishment for him who
disobeys the divine Law. If there were no retribution, then
God would not take His own Law seriously ; then He would not
be rigidly firm and constant in His will which makes such a
demand upon men; then He would not be Righteous (or just).
It is not merely the way in which the judgment is given —
without respect of persons, impartially, objectively — ^which is
the expression of the divine Righteousness, but the very Fact
of Judgment as well.^

The element of equality which is characteristic of the idea
of justice in the contemporary sense of the word, is based on the
fact — on the one hand — that the life of the created being is
intended to be in harmony with the Divine Will — and on the
other hand, on the fact that the same response is required from
all human beings because, in principle, the same life and the
same destiny has been given to all. The fundamental law of life
is this: Love God and your neighbour. This fundamental law
clearly expresses the fact that there is a "correspondence"
between God and Man, namely, that God, the Loving One,
desires man's love in return — and nothing less than this.
"Dilige et fac quod vis!" And this one demand is made upon all

' Acts 17: 31.
278

THE ETERNITY , . . AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

because all have been created in, and through, and for, this
Love. But this is the only "equality" which may be included
within the idea of the Divine righteousness. There is only one
claim of God upon His creatures; but there is no equal claim of
the creatures on God. The inequality in the lot of human beings
does not contradict the fact of the divine righteousness, for
the Creator is under no debt to His creation. The idea of
righteousness in revelation, therefore, is strictly limited to that
which is connected with the claim of God upon us, and never
merges into a claim of man upon God. God alone has rights over
against man; man has no rights over against God, although, it
is true, that in virtue of a divine arrangement he has rights over
against his fellow-man, original rights, human rights. But
this question does not belong to this subject, but to the sphere
of ethics.

This aspect of the divine will, expressed in the idea of
righteousness, is the rational element within the doctrine of
God, Even the reason has been created by God. The rational
element, however, is that which is in accordance with law, that
which can be conceived by law, and which corresponds with
law. Therefore this understanding of the divine righteousness
which is designated by the ideas of God's demand, of Law,
Judgment and Punishment, is that in which the two elements
in the doctrine of God meet : the element of revelation and the
rational element. Outside the sphere of the Biblical revelation,
too, there is a conception of God as a just Law-giver and Judge,''
as, on the other hand, there is an idea of a human righteousness
which consists in the fulfilment of the divine Law, which we
find in the non-Christian ethic. The special element in the
doctrine of God in revelation is not this conception of righteous-
ness in itself, but the way in which, through its connexion
with the other, it, itself, becomes modified. This shows how
this linguistic problem arose, which consists in the fact that the
Biblical word "Righteousness", although it contains this
idea of judgment and law, also has quite different meanings,
from which its characteristic meaning is derived.

In contrast to the rational element the idea of God in revela-
tion is determined by the Freedom of God. God is not the
Law, and the Law is not God. God is the Lord — even of His
Law. The Law, therefore, is not an independent entity, and it is
not an ultimate, as it is within reason. The Law has always
been established by God. As the Lord of Creation and its

' Zaralhustra. Cf. also, Plato's Gorgias.
279

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

"orders" stands above the Creation and its orders, and manifests
Himself as such in miracle, so the righteous God stands above
His Law and judgment and manifests His sovereign freedom by
setting men free from the punishment demanded by the law,
through forgiveness. We must go deeper still. We have already
seen that God's Holiness, in spite of the fact that in some way
it differs from His Love, is yet fulfilled in love, and that it is
precisely in this unity and yet non-identity of Holiness and
Love that the decisive element in the Idea of God in revelation
consists. This is worked out in the understanding of the Right-
eousness of God in the fact that the divine righteousness finds
its paradoxical fulfilment in the pardon, or "justification", of
the sinner. This fulfilment cannot be understood from the
standpoint of the rational, general, idea of righteousness, as
expressed in the conceptions of law, judgment, punishment,
and indeed as equal law, just judgment and just punishment;
from this point of view it seems wholly unintelligible. But, on
the other hand, if — as we must — we understand the Law to have
been established by God, in His own free way, in a freedom
which means that, if He chooses. He has a perfect right to
ignore the Law and to act freely in another way, just as a king
ignores the law when he grants a royal pardon, we then begin
to see that here the most profound meaning of the idea of
"righteousness" is disclosed.

For what is the inward intention of Law and Judgment?
Surely it means that God should have His own rights, that His
unlimited sovereign right as Lord should be emphasized. But
how can His sovereign "rights" be more plainly emphasized
than in the fact that He graciously forgives sin, that He, the
King, pardons the rebel and in mercy receives him back again
into favour, without executing upon him the just sentence of
death? As God's Holy will fulfills itself in the fact that He
rescues the sinful creature by His merciful love, creates him
anew, and sanctifies him, so His righteous will is accomplished
in the fact that He exercises His supreme right, His right to
pardon. God comes to His right in that through His forgiveness,
through His reconciliation. He turns, changes the whole outlook
of his rebellious child, breaks down his resistance, and gives
freely to the loveless that love which the law required in vain.^
This is the Biblical witness to the Righteousness of God, and
this witness culminates in the doctrine of the Justification of
the sinner through Jesus Christ.

« Rom. 8: 3ff.

280

THE ETERNITY . . . AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

But this is not all. The Holiness of God is fulfilled, it is true,
in His merciful love, but it is not absorbed into that Love of
God; it still remains distinct, and must be recognized by us as
part of the Nature of God. So also the just penalty which is
pronounced upon the sinner is not simply swept away by
forgiveness. God does not simply ignore His own law. He uses
His right to pardon simply by confirming the validity of His
judgment and therefore of His law. Hence He who came to give
to us God's merciful love, took upon Himself the "curse of the
law", I and Himself went to the death which was appointed for
sinful man. The Cross of Christ, the atoning Passion^ of the
Righteous One, Holy and Loving, is both the manifestation of
the irrevocable will of law, and the seriousness of judgment and
of merciful pardoning love, thus of the Holiness of God in con-
trast to love, and the Love of God as the fulfilment of Holiness. 3
Thus the paradoxical righteousness which God's Law effects in
the act of pardon includes the non-paradoxical rational right-
eousness which consists in the correspondence of guilt and
expiation. The Cross of Christ took place to show His righteous-
ness,4 as the confirmation, and at the same time as the
transcending of the just judgment of God through the Divine
Act of Atonement. He Himself, the God who comes to us,
"pays the debt"5 which we could not pay, so that the twofold
truth shines out: how great God is in Judgment, and how
wonderful in Mercy. "The Lord, the Just One, pays all His
servant's debts."

I Gal. 3: 10, 13. » Is. 53: 5. 3 Rom. 3: 25 fif.

4 Rom. 3: 25. 5 Matt. 20: 28; i Peter i: 18; i Tim. 2: 6.

281

CHAPTER 21

THE WISDOM AND THE GLORY OF GOD

(I)
The conception of the Righteousness of God has already
forced us to look at the relation of God to the reason. Even if
it is clear from the outset that the God of revelation cannot be
grasped by means of any rational categories, on the other hand
we have no right to construct a contradiction between God and
the reason. The very fact that in the Bible so much is said about
the divine Wisdom should militate against such a mistake.
Actually, too, there is this further consideration against such a
view, namely, that all truth, even the truth acquired by the
reason, is derived from God. As the Righteousness of God also
includes within itself that righteousness (or justice) which
everyone, by means of his reason, can recognize as justice —
the justice that treats every human being equally, according to
his deserts — so also the Wisdom of God includes within itself
everything that can be known through the reason as true and
valid. The higher divine righteousness includes the rational
righteousness; this is the only right order. So also the divine
Wisdom includes the truth of reason, and not the other way
round. The reason does not grasp God, but the reason is derived
from God, and possesses its own divine justification.

That is why the Bible frequently speaks of God as performing
rational acts which are like our own: God "knows", God
"judges", God "decides", God "counts", God "calls by name".
That which is regarded as rational among men upon earth is
also recognized as valid in heaven; there is no reason to doubt
that mathematical truths and the laws of logic are also
recognized by God as valid, not indeed that they belong to a
sphere which is above God, but because they are the overflow
of the divine thought and will. The same God who guides the
heavenly constellations on their way and "counts the number
of the stars", ^ in addition to their path and their number, has
also established the truths of mathematics, just as He has
established the orders of Nature. Kepler was not mistaken in
believing that he ought to praise God for having allowed him,
by means of his astronomical researches, to "think His thoughts
after Him". The Logos of reason is not, as such, the "verbum

' Ps. 147: 4.
282

THE WISDOM AND THE GLORY OF GOD

Dei" in whom all things have been created; but it is not alien
to the Word of God, but is included within it.^ The Reason of
God is infinitely greater than what we usually call "reason" and
"rational" ; but the truth of reason which we do know has a
share in the divine truth.

God's works in Creation are therefore both revelations of the
divine Wisdom, and are recognized as such by the reason.
Noovfjievoc KocdopaTocL, God's creation is, it is true, not rational but
it is accessible to reason ; it is only because this is so that we have
the knowledge of Nature, laws that can be perceived, order
which can be presented with mathematical exactness. Hence
the Bible often speaks of God's Wisdom in connexion with the
order of the world. ^ Certainly, in all this the emphasis is not so
much upon its accessibility to reason for our thought, as on
that which transcends all our thinking, the Wisdom of the
Works of Creation which can never be fathomed nor penetrated
by us; thus the emphasis is not so much upon the fact that
they are accessible to reason as on the fact that they are supra-
rational. We shall have more to say about this in connexion
with the doctrine of Creation. The Wisdom of God, as it is
manifested in the Creation, might be described as the ideal
aspect of the Divine Omnipotence 3 with which it is often
classed. For this Divine Wisdom is the Power of God in its
absolutely unlimited spiritual creativity, a creativity which is
perpetually flowering into new forms of life, based upon
profound and impenetrable depths of infinity — these are the
signs of the Divine Wisdom at work, which distinguish its
operations from all human activity.

In the New Testament, however, the idea of the Divine
Wisdom is found more frequently in connexion with God's
governance in History than in connexion with the Creation.
This implies that the Wisdom of God is the fundamental cate-
gory of a Christian philosophy of History. It is the absolute
mastery of the Architect who builds the City of God, the
absolute planning of God, above all that is accidental and
frustrating in the course of this world. 4 In all the apparent
meaningless of this process of history, in all theories of teleology
and dysteleology, in good and in evil, in the beautiful and in
the ugly, in that which leads to death, and in that which leads
to life, in that which is significant, and in that which has no

I Cf. Calvin's observations on John 1:9; Wke., 47, 8 fi.
» Ps. 104: 24; Jer. 10 : 12.

3 "Wisdom and Might", Job 12: 13; Prov. 3: 19.

4 Eph. 3: 10; Rom. 11: 33; in connection with Chs. 9-11.

283

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

meaning, God controls and rules all by His Wisdom, and He
weaves all these various threads — so different in kind and in
origin — into His tapestry; He uses all these strange materials
as stones for His building, for the final establishment of His
Kingdom — as yet still hidden and secret, but one day to be
revealed to all men.

If Hegel's philosophy of History is built upon the idea: all
that is real is rational, the Christian philosophy of History is
based upon the idea: everything that happens is a means of
the Divine Wisdom. Hegel's thesis breaks down when confronted
by what is obviously irrational and contrary to reason. Thought
controlled by revelation includes all this in the Divine Wisdom.
It is able to do this because its centre is the "folly of the
Cross", in which God reveals His Wisdom, ^ and the plan for the
world which He has made on these lines. The irrational and
contra-rational elements in that event, the fact that it is against
all common sense, that the Holy One of God should be con-
demned as a criminal blasphemer and executed — this is the
decisive method in the Hands of God for revealing His Holiness
and His Love. From this centre we can also perceive the same
law at work at other points in the history of redemption, that
is, that God takes the very things which seem most contrary
to His Purpose and uses them to accomplish His Will. This was
already the view of the Prophet of the Exile: the Servant of
the Lord, the true Israel, bears the sickness and guilt of the
people. 2 It was also the view of the Apostle Paul: the present
rejection of disobedient Israel is the means by which God makes
room for the heathen nations in His Kingdom, in order that
He may finally include rejected Israel within it, too. In face
of this revelation the Apostle breaks out :

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judge-
ments and His ways past tracing out!?

But this wisdom is only accessible to faith: it can only be
perceived "sub contraria specie" in the folly of the Cross. 4
God's wisdom is unsearchable". His "ways are past tracing
out";5 the reason of God is not our reason, therefore it cannot
be reached by our own efforts of rational thought. ^ To call the
ways of God in history "wise" and "rational" — does not lie in
the sphere of natural judgment, based on perception and logic;

' I Cor. i: 21 ff. » Is. 53. 3 Rom. ii: 33 (R.V.).

4 I Cor. i: 24. 5 Rom. 11: 33. * Is. 55: 8.

284

THE WISDOM AND THE GLORY OF GOD

this is only possible Trapa So^av, against appearances, against
all the natural evidence, upon the ground of that revelation
which conceals the Glory of God in the "form of a servant".
When the Evangelist says: "We saw His Glory," this "seeing"
is a supernatural act; it is "seeing" with the eyes of faith.

(2)

Both in the Old and in the New Testament the "Glory" — the
"Doxa" — of God is frequently mentioned. Once again we are
confronted by the question: Are we here dealing with the
concept of the Nature of God, or with a Divine Attribute?
Can it not be said that "Glory" should be ascribed to God as
He is in Himself? Does not "Glory" mean particularly that
which is characteristic of God's manner of Being, in contrast
to that of the Creation? We must certainly be on our guard
against letting ourselves be led astray by the German word
Herrlichkeit (glory), by connecting it directly with the thought
of Him as Herr (Lord). This connexion is alien to the thought
both of the Old and the New Testament {i.e. both the "Kabod"
of the Old Testament and the "doxa" of the New). But is there
not an actual relation, even though it is not a verbal one ?

Since we are here dealing with an idea which is in a very
special sense a Biblical one — so Biblical, indeed, that outside
the language of the Bible it is difficult to find an exact equiva-
lent— it will be advisable to begin with some lexicographical
observations. I The Old Testament word Kabod, which the
Septuagint usually renders as doxa, means literally "difficulty",
"weight"; but where it is used of God, it is first applied to
certain majestic phenomena of the Divine Presence of a natural
character, e.g. thunderstorms, supernatural light, illuminations
of a special kind, by which the Israelites knew that Yahweh
was present. Later on this idea acquired the more abstract
meaning of "Honour", the majestic self-manifestation of God,
with a strongly eschatological tendency; it is used to describe
the radiant signs of the Presence of God in His Creation at the
end of the Ages.

The Greek word So|a, on the other hand, has an entirely
different linguistic origin. The word is evidently derived from
the subjective cognitive sphere, and means, first of all, the
"opinion" — akin to "dogma" — which one holds about some-
thing or someone; then it means the "respect", "reputation",
or "fame" which someone enjoys. "When, for the first time,

' See the article on (5dfa in Theol. Worterbuch zum N.T., II, pp. 236-57.

285

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

a translator of the Old Testament hit upon the idea of rendering
kahod by doxa, a linguistic change took place which was of
unusual significance. The Greek word began to be modified
and re-shaped to an extent which cannot be exaggerated. From
an idea which denoted 'thinking' and 'meaning', which
implies the subjective element, with all the variations in human
thinking and 'wondering' that this involves, we now have a
massively objective idea, which denotes the absolute reality
of God. "I "Divine Glory, Divine Majesty, Divine Power, the
visible radiance of the Divine Light" ^ — in the New Testament
these are the varying shades of meaning which merge into one
another as attempts to explain this mysterious, almost incom-
prehensible word. Some of this feeling still clings to the Latin
phrase "gloria Dei" , which has paved the way for most later
translations of doxa in Christian terminology. What is the
actual problem which lies behind this linguistic one ?

The idea of the Divine Glory is in itself both objective and
subjective. 3 It designates something in God, and yet again
something which does not mean God's Being in Himself, but
rather God's Being as it becomes visible in His revealed
Presence for the eye of faith: "Glory of revelation. "4 Glorifica-
tion is the aim of the divine revelation, the aim of the God who
as the Holy One must assert Himself, and as the Merciful and
Loving One wills to be near to us, and to bring us into com-
munion with Himself. God's Glory, then, is not "in Himself",
but in the world He has created, in so far as He communicates
Himself to it, and in it is fully recognized. It is, moreover, the
reflection of the Being of God from the Creation back to Him,
the Creator, and to the eyes of those who are illuminated by
this reality of His revelation. "Let the whole earth be filled
with His Glory" ;5 and the glorification of the Son, and of those
who belong to Him, is the aim of the mission of Jesus. ^

Hence "glory" is not one of those concepts which describe
the Being of God as He is in Himself; nor does it form one of
the ideas of the "Attributes", each of which expresses His
relation to the created world in a particular way; the Glory of
God is the sum-total and the unity of all that God shows forth,
in the fullness of His revelation, of the realization of His

• Theol. Worterhuch, II, p. 248. » Ibid., p. 251.

3 Hence expressions like "the knowledge of the Glory of the Lord" (Hab.
2: 14) and "the knowledge of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ"
(2 Cor. 4:6).

4 Cf. expressions like "the glory of the Name" — to "show honour to", etc.

5 Ps. 72: 19; Is. 6: 3. ' John 12: 28; 17: 5, 24.

286

THE WISDOM AND THE GLORY OF GOD

sovereignty. This idea is so fundamentally Scriptural, because
it expresses the whole of the Biblical knowledge of God, as
knowledge of the revealing and communicating God. This also
shows why this word always contains such a strong eschato-
logical element. It designates above all the perfect revelation
at the end of the Ages — the manner of Divine Being, as it will
be when the sovereignty of God, and communion with God,
will be perfect, God with us and God in us, in its perfection.'
God's Nature or Being, His Holiness and His Love are one
thing. His Glory is another. God's Holiness and Love are
always there, quite apart from the existence of the world.
But God has His "Glory", in the sense of 8o|a, with and in
His creation, perfected by Himself.

Therefore 8d|a should be translated by the objective idea of
the shining of a light, as well as by the subjective-objective
idea of Honour. Glory as Light, because it is Divine reality, the
divine Presence which one day will be seen "face to face";^
Honour, because, the Presence of God is not merely objective
but it is also subjective-objective, the full recognition of His
sovereignty and the full affirmation, the exultant praise of His
Presence and His Love on the part of His Creation. 3 This Glory
proceeds wholly from God's Being; it is based solely in Him,
and that not merely as His work, but in His Presence. And yet
it is not His nature in itself, but His nature in His revelation,
the will which has accomplished its purpose, the realized and
completed Presence of God. The idea of Sofa, therefore,
expresses the most characteristic element in the Biblical Idea
of God; that God is One who desires to communicate Himself,
that revelation is of His very Nature, and that this can only be
perceived as it is in the final accomplishment of the revelation.

(3)
In dogmatics it is usual to speak of the Bliss of God. This
phraseology is alien to the thought of the Bible. 4 The question
is: Is this "strangeness" accidental? Or is it an integral part of
the whole question? The Bible does not speak of the "Bliss"
of God because it knows nothing of the ^eo? dnxdos of abstract
speculation. The God of revelation is passionately "interested" ;
there is a Divine Wrath and a Divine Mercy, the wrath of the

• Rotn. 8: i8; i Cor. 15: 43; Col. i: 27; i Peter 5: i, etc.

* I Cor. 13: 12.

3 Hence all "doxology", "on earth and in heaven". Rev. 1 : 6, etc.

4 The only exception is i Tim. i: 11 and 6: 15; but both passages have
no particular emphasis; they are used formally.

287

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Holy, the Mercy of One who is Love. That God in Himself is
Bliss or Joy, within the truth about Him determined by
revelation, can only mean that God does not love because He
desires something which He lacks, but because He Himself has,
and is, "Fullness" itself. But it is not for us to reflect upon that
about which the Bible is silent, not merely because the Bible
is silent, but because we know why it is silent. Unlike some theo-
logians of the past and of the present,^ the Bible says very
little about the Beauty of God. For our human feeling and
thinking Beauty is so closely connected with visible form, that
we would not know how to apply this idea to God. God creates
the beautiful ; He allows us to have pleasure in Beauty. But of
Him who is the Original Image of God it is said "there is no
beauty that we should desire Him".^ This is said, it is true, of
the Son "in the form of a servant". But when the Scriptures
speak of His form in its perfection, they do not speak of
"Beauty", but of "Glory" — 8d|a. We might, of course, put it
thus: the "Glory", the Sd|a, is the Beauty of God, and no other
word is large enough to express this. Beauty, in the ordinary
sense of the word, is an earthly parable of the Divine Glory,
and at the same time a substitute for the Sd^a which is lacking.
It is precisely this ambivalence which is characteristic of it. This
is why it is not mentioned in connexion with the Biblical know-
ledge of God.

Finally, the "Perfection" of God: there is a very famous
Biblical passage which speaks of the Perfection of God: "Ye
therefore shall be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect. "3
But in this context a quite particular kind of Perfection is
intended, namely, love in its fullness. Otherwise the Bible does
not speak of the Perfection of God. Not indeed because there
could be any imperfection in God, but because the idea of
Perfection is not suitable for God. It only expresses the formal
element that nothing is lacking. In order to make this state-
ment there must be a standard by which one measures whether
anything is lacking. Thus this conception presupposes that
there is a standard which one can apply to God, and the result
of this measurement would be that there is nothing lacking in
God! This whole intellectual procedure is alien to the thought
of revelation. It is far more in harmony with that kind of

• Cf. Delitzsch, Biblische Psychologic, pp. 34 fl., and von Oettingen, Luther's
Dogmatik, II, pp. 259 ff. ^ Is. 53: 2.

3 Matt. 5 : 48. According to Professor J. Hausheer, however, it seems possible
that this is a mistranslation of the Aramaic, and that the original reading was :
"Therefore you must forgive, as your Heavenly Father forgives."

288

THE WISDOM AND THE GLORY OF GOD

thinking which follows the "via eminentiae" , but not with that
which starts from the idea of the Absolute Lord. But what can
be lacking in One from whom alone we receive all we can know !
What could be lacking in Him who is the Source of all Norms,
the Lawgiver who has given all laws ! Even to put the question
at all is foolish. Even that great idea of Anselm, that God is
He "quo majus nihil cogitari potest" , is not fitting for the God
of revelation. It also, like the related idea of the Summum
honum, does not belong to the sphere of Biblical thought but
to that of speculation. All these conceptions imply that God
is the last link in a chain ; or the highest step on a ladder ; they
co-ordinate Him into a hierarchy where He can be compared
with others who are like Him, and in so doing they miss the
Idea of God according to Revelation, namely, that God cannot
and should not be compared with anything at all; that all
abstract thinking which indulges in such comparisons does not
reach God, but only the Idea of the Absolute, which is only the
shadow cast by the reality of God on to rational thought.

289

APPENDIX TO SECTION ONE

ON THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

As we have already shown in Chapter 17, the metaphysical,
speculative perversion of the Doctrine of God comes out parti-
cularly clearly in the dogmatic treatment of the Attributes of
God. This general statement will now be emphasized and
illustrated in the following pages by some actual examples.

(I)

(l) THE SIMPLICITY AND IMMUTABILITY OF GOD

It is characteristic of the speculative tendency, even within
Protestant Scholasticism, that among the "Attributes" with
which it deals, that of the "Simplicity" of God stands at the
head of the list,* and is explained and expounded with much
detail and vividness. This idea of the " simplicitas Dei" is
inevitable if we make the abstract idea of the Absolute the
starting-point for our thought. This is simply the undiffer-
entiated Monas of Neo-Platonism modified by Theism. It was
only from the time of Dionysius the Areopagite that this subject
became a characteristic theme of dogmatic consideration,
although even some of the later Fathers of the Church used
this idea, on occasion, in their effort to solve the problem of
the Unity and the Trinity of God (cf., for instance, Cyril of
Alexandria: De sancta et consuhstantiali Trinitate dialogi in
Rouet de Journel, 2081; and other passages in the same work).
To "think" the Absolute necessarily leads one to the idea of
undifferentiated Unity. In so far, however, as something
definite must be said about this undifferentiated One, that is,
attributes must be predicated, then the idea of "simplicitas"
forms the necessary transition ; it expresses the truth that that
which is to be differentiated cannot be broken up into its com-
ponent parts, so "that whatever is thought in God is God Him-
self, and thus the most absolute identity exists between the
Divine Being and His Attributes" (Heidegger, Corp. iheoL, III,
30). The identity of substance and attributes, the absence of
anything that can be conceived as "built up" or "divided", con-
stitutes the logical apparatus with which the Scholastic theo-
logians of the Middle Ages and of the Post-Reformation period
operated (cf., e.g., Johann Gerhard, Loci, theol., I, pp. 305 ff.).

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

But when a man like Johann Gerhard, in accordance with
his Reformation outlook, also enquires into the usus practicus
of the doctrine, then his answer shows — in its futility and
its evasiveness — that here there is really no usus practicus,
that he is here dealing with a speculative theologumenon or
philosophumenon, which has nothing at all to do with the God
of the Christian Faith. Here we are not dealing with an Attribute
of God at all, but with the fact that the idea of the Absolute
permits no differentiations.

The situation is similar in the case of the idea of "immuta-
hilitas" , the Changelessness of God. Anyone who takes seriously
the definition given by {e.g.) Quenstedt (I, 288): " immutahilitas
est perpetua essentiae divinae et omnium ejus perfectionum iden-
titas, negans omnem omnino motum, cumphysicum, cum ethicum" ,
has ceased to think of the Living God of revelation ; once more
he is thinking of the undifferentiated Absolute. If he thinks that
it is possible, at one and the same time, to think of this abstract
idea of the undifferentiated Absolute with which it is identical,
and the Being of the God of revelation, then we cannot offer
him any better advice than to study the Dogmatics of David
Friedrich Strauss, who, with the aid of this idea of the Abso-
lute, completely destroys the Biblical, Christian, Idea of God.
If there be no "motus" in God, then there is neither wrath nor
love in God; then most certainly there is no "heartfelt mercy",
but the most rigid immutability of the self-sufficient idea. It is
therefore cheering to see that more recent Protestant theology
— here true to the revelation in Scripture — has given up per-
petuating the doctrine of these Scholastic ideas of the Divine
Attributes of the Dionysian tradition. Hermann Cremer, in
particular, has rendered us a great service — as founder of the
Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament — in his out-
standing small book. Die christliche Lehre von den Eigenschaften
Gottes, as the first to have pointed out the contrast between the
traditional doctrine of the Divine Attributes and the Idea of
God in the Bible. Karl Barth also foUows in his track (see
Kirchl. Dogm., II, i, pp. 291 ff.). Twenty years ago, when I
began to teach dogmatics, it was Cremer, too, who opened my
eyes.

(2) THE IDEA OF OMNIPOTENCE

The thought of the Fathers of the Church about God is
dominated by the problem of the Trinity, so that their doctrine
of the Divine Attributes is not highly developed. The out-

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APPENDIX TO SECTION ONE

standing Platonists among them — Clement of Alexandria,
Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, and above
all Augustine, emphasize the speculative idea of the Absolute,
and the Neo-Platonist ontology leads Augustine to make state-
ments which sometimes seem to verge on Pantheism. Once one
has accepted the Neo-Platonist idea, "Deum nihil aliud dicam
esse nisi idipsum esse" {De morihus ecclesiae, XIV, 24) it is
difficult to make room for an "esse" alongside of God. But in
the works of Augustine this Neo-Platonism is continually per-
meated with the Biblical Idea of God. Of course, the situation is
different when we come to the writer whose thinking dominated
the Middle Ages: Dionysius the Areopagite. For him the one
statement about God that matters is this: God is "the One", or
the "Divine One" [ev koI -ndv). By the via negationis, which the
Areopagite describes in his own classic way [De div. nom., 7, 3)
by abstraction, one reaches this undifferentiated "Alone",
which may equally well be described as the "All" or "Nothing".
Thus all concrete representation, all definite statement, even
that about Omnipotence, is only a subjective reflection of the
"Alone" in our consciousness.

This idea is developed by Duns Scotus with ruthless logic in
the pantheistic sense. The doctrine of the Church did not
follow this line. It was an event of great significance when
Anselm asserted the existence of the Divine Subject over
against the abstract idea of Existence, and so, by means of the
Biblical idea of God, arrested the development of speculation
on the Absolute. In accordance with this view, he rejects the
axiom that the Attributes of God can only be distinguished in
the human subject. {Dico, quod non tantum haberi potest con-
ceptus naturaliter , in quo quasi per accidens concipitur Deus, puta
in aliquo attributo, sed etiam aliquis conceptus, in quo per se et
quidditative concipiatur" Sent., I, dist. 3.)

This means that the idea of Omnipotence as a relation of
God to a created existence becomes possible. In the main
period of Scholastic theology — as in later Protestant and
Catholic scholasticism — by means of the idea of the potestas
ordinata a compromise was sought between the Biblical idea of
God as the Almighty and the idea of potestas absoluta derived
from Neo-Platonism; here the main problem of discussion is
whether what God can do goes beyond that which actually is.
The subtle and often ridiculous explanations about all that
God could do "if" He wanted to do so, play an important part
in this kind of thinking (cf. on this Gieseler, Kirchengeschichte,

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

II, 4, 5, pp. 324 ff.). On the other hand, in this hne of thought,
the decisive element in the Bibhcal Idea of God as "Almighty"
is absent : the relation to the fact of Redemption.

Luther's idea of Omnipotence is inconsistent, and even con-
tradictory. But this inconsistency is due to the profound
changes which took place in Luther's thought after he had
published his work, de servo arhitno. In this work, as indeed
during his early period as a whole, Luther does not expound
the Biblical idea of Divine Omnipotence, but that of the
potestas ahsoluta, even though he gives it a turn of his own.
Not the "esse" but the "velle" of God is absolute. Here the idea
is that "God does anything" {Allwirksamkeit) , which leaves no
room for any kind of creaturely causality, but explicitly denies
it. This is why it is connected with the idea of the "mera neces-
sitas" : "Deus nihil praescit contingenter, sed omnia incommu-
tabili et aeterna infallibilique voluntate et praevidit et proponit et
facit" {W.W., 18, 615). This idea of a God who "does every-
thing" (Allwirksamkeit), with its complete determinism, is
opposed to the Biblical idea of Omnipotence, as has already
been shown. Later on, when he was trying to correct his doc-
trine of double predestination Luther saw this, but he never
reached a clear re-formulation of the idea of Omnipotence;
rather, later on, he seems to have thought that the solution lay
in the sphere of the Deus absconditus, and that the idea of
Omnipotence belongs there, with the Divine wrath, which, in so
far as it is understood as potestas ahsoluta, is quite right (see
above, p. 170), but this would have led to a different con-
ception of Omnipotence, and to one in accordance with revela-
tion. Luther uses ideas like these, it is true, in his preaching,
but he did not develop their theological interpretation.

Zwingli's Neo-Platonist Idea of God, in his work De Provi-
dentia, will be dealt with later on (see below, p. 321). But it
would be a mistake to think that Zwingli only followed this
line later in his career. Already in the Commentarius de vera et
falsa religione he adopts the traditional Platonic exposition of
the "Name of Yahweh", and infers from this: "Illud ergo esse
tarn est bonum, quam est esse" (III, pp. 644 ff.). But alongside of
this speculative idea Zwingli also uses the Biblical idea of
Omnipotence. Calvin's conception — in spite of the views
ascribed to him by tradition — comes nearest to the Biblical
idea of Omnipotence. Where Calvin explicitly teaches the
omnipotentia he limits it strictly to the Divine Creation, and
rule of the world, and by means of the idea of Providence he

296

APPENDIX TO SECTION ONE

connects it with the divine plan of salvation. He firmly rejects
the scholastic idea of Omnipotence, and all the sophistry which
indulges in questions about what was possible and what was
not possible for God to do. God "censetur omnipotens non quod
possit quidem facere, cesset tamen interim et desideat (the idea of
power as being able merely 'to do anything') . .. sed quia sua
providentia coelum et terram gubernans, sic omnia moderatur, ut
nihil sine eius consilio accidat" {Institutio, I, i6, 3).

The Protestant Scholastic theologians, on the other hand,
follow the mediaeval scholastics; on the whole they tend to
follow most closely in the steps of St. Thomas Aquinas: as, for
instance, when Quenstedt {L.I., 293) explicitly says that he
does not wish the idea of the divine Omnipotence to extend
only to that which God wills, but also to that "which is in any
way possible", by which he means everything which contains
no contradiction within itself. Maresius {Syntagma theologiae,
p. 24) says likewise: "Multa plura potest facere quam fecit . . .
omnipotentia ad omnia possihilia extenditur."

We have spoken already of Schleiermacher's idea of Omni-
potence, which, of course, is entirely on Dionysian lines. Of
later theologians, Rothe {Dogmatik, para. 32) develops the idea
of Omnipotence in the direction of the Biblical conception:
"that the relation of God to the world is that of His absolute
freedom over against it" {Dogmatik, I, 123), and once more it is
von Oettingen who formulates the decisive idea of the divine
self -limitation : "Omnipotence which sets up its own limita-
tions for itself, is not only thinkable, but is necessary for
thought, if human freedom is not to founder on the rocks" (H,

I, P- 259)-

Upon the whole, in the treatment of the idea of Omnipotence
in modern theology, there are hopeful signs of an increasing
influence of Biblical exegesis, and accordingly an abandonment
of speculative scholastic thinking. I have already alluded to the
achievement of Cremer in opening up the path for this develop-
ment ; characteristically, in Biedermann's Dogmatik there is no
positive statement about Omnipotence at all (cf. para. 713).

(3) OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE

The history of the doctrine of God's Omnipresence and
Omniscience bears very clear traces of the disastrous influence
of the speculative metaphysical doctrine of God. What the
theologians say about this shows that there is almost no con-

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

nexion at all with faith in the God of revelation; without
always being aware of it, of course, their disquisitions are
natural theology, pure and simple.

In the doctrine of Omnipresence, this comes out particularly
clearly in the fact that the subject of the doctrine is simply
that which we have already described as the neutral idea of
Omnipresence: the relation of God to extension in space, thus
the problem: How can the God who is non-spatial be every-
where present within space?

"The Divine is not confined to one place, but neither is it
absent from any place ; for it fills all things, passes through all
things, and is outside all things and in all things" (Cyril of Alex-
andria, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, 14: 9) — this is an
idea which was certainly not calculated to attract any great theo-
logical interest, so long as theology is at least to some extent
aware of its purpose. Hence the idea of Omnipresence lies on
the outer rim of the circumference of theological explanation.
How very different would have been their outlook if these
theologians had really considered the locus classicus for the
Divine Omnipresence, the 139th Psalm; this would have opened
up new vistas to them ! How wonderfully the Psalmist's vision
comprehends both the Presence in space and in saving personal
communion: "Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid
Thine hand upon me."

It is characteristic of the further development of this doctrine
that the statement of Omnipresence became a mere inference
from the "Infinity" of God, which, for its part, was an inference
from the idea of absolute Being. Thus St. Thomas Aquinas
{Summa, I, qu. 8) develops the doctrine of the ubiquity of God
(Art. 2-4) as a purely metaphysical problem of being, without
any consideration of what the Bible says about it. The only
passage from Scripture which he quotes is, characteristically,
a passage from the Book of Wisdom, allegorically explained. A
new, genuinely Biblical movement only entered into this whole
sterile metaphysical business at the time of the Reformation,
through the discussions about the Presence of Christ in the
Sacrament of Holy Communion. Even if Luther's doctrine of
ubiquity is fantastic, still it is the expression of a genuine
Biblical concern: the point at issue is the real Presence of
Christ with His own. Following in the steps of Luther, the
Lutheran scholastic theologians supplemented the mediaeval
idea of the omnipraesentia essentialis — ^which shows the con-

298

APPENDIX TO SECTION ONE

nexion with the idea of "being" — with the idea of the omni-
praesentia operativa seu gratiosa, and thus they came at least
within sight of the BibHcal idea of the Presence of God. But this
did not lead to a re-formulation of the doctrine, and later
systems of dogmatics lost sight even of this link, and, so far as I
can see, almost without exception the neutral problem of Space
still occupies all their attention. (On K. Earth, see the next
section.)

So far as the next point — the idea of Omniscience — is con-
cerned, the situation is somewhat better. Something, indeed,
was needed to connect the Neo-Platonist idea of God as "esse
absolutum" with the central Biblical idea, that God is "knowing
Subject". We have already pointed out the significance of
Anselm in this connexion (see above, p. 295). Is the Omniscience
of God recognized — on whatever grounds the doctrine may be
based — then, of necessity, problems arise which at least point
in the direction of the Biblical statement, in connexion with the
Divine Decree, with Providence, and with the Divine Plan of
Salvation. Even St. Thomas had to ask the question (I, qu. 14,
Art. 9) whether, and how, God can know the future, whether,
and how, He knows Evil, and how this knowledge is related to
His will. But, now, instead of at last recollecting the Divine
Plan in the Scriptures, this problem is solved by means of the
Platonic Theory of Ideas (qu. 15).

In the period of the Reformation the situation changed. The
idea of Omniscience is considered in connexion with that of
Providence, and this latter idea is understood in the Biblical
sense as loving sympathy, loving forethought, and finally as
Election. In the great Reformers themselves, in any case, this
connexion is clear and predominant, even though it is over-
shadowed in the teaching of Luther (during his earlier activity),
Zwingli, and Calvin by the doctrine of a double predestination.
Among the later scholastic theologians, on the contrary, to a
large extent the doctrine of Omniscience (in the doctrine of the
Divine Attributes) was ignored — and has been so ever since.
Thus Rothe, with evidently polemical emphasis, underlines his
statement: "This, and nothing further — namely, the neutral
idea that God knows everything — is what the idea of Omni-
science contains" {Dogmatik, I, p. 123). The majority of modern
theologians evince no interest in the problem. Schleiermacher's
detailed treatment of the subject {Glaubenslehre, para. 55) is an
honourable exception to this statement, but in the sentence:
"The Divine thinking is one with the Divine Will, and Omni-

299

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

potence and Omniscience are the same" (55, i), the pantheistic
background of his thought shows through very clearly. Von
Oettingen rightly attacks this statement as "pantheistic"; for
God knows that which He does not will ; God's knowledge of the
created world is different from His will which brings it forth
{Luthers Dogm., H, i, p. 258). But he, also, like other modern
theologians, fails to perceive the connexion between Omni-
science and the Plan of Salvation, and thus the distinctive
Biblical doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Strangely enough,
in Karl Barth's Dogmatik there is no mention of the idea of
Omniscience, and even the doctrine of Providence is nowhere
fully developed. On the other hand, his observations on the
Divine Omnipresence are to a large extent similar to those
expressed in this book, although his dependence upon the
Scholastic tradition shows itself in the fact that here, too, the
abstract problem of Space predominates, and that Barth —
with St. Thomas — conceives Omnipresence as the consequence
of the Infinity and Simplicity of God {Kirchl. Dogm., H, i,
para. 31, i).

(4) THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

We have already shown in detail that traditional Dogmatics
completely ignores the idea of the Faithfulness of God, which is
so central in the Scriptures, and why this is so. In so far as it is
mentioned at all, this occurs under the heading of Veracitas,
which, however, is discussed without connexion with revela-
tion, and moreover, as an idea of a divine ethical virtue. In
Protestant theology there occurs now and again a suggestion of
the constantia Dei in servandis promissionibus, which at least
opens a small window in the direction of that which the Bible
understands by the Faithfulness of God.

On the other hand, the idea of the Righteousness of God
everywhere plays a considerable part. But here, in particular,
in this idea there also appears the widespread influence of the
speculative perversion, in the fact that the "Righteousness of
God" is regarded entirely as the rational idea of righteousness;
that IS, the idea of retribution, and expecially the legalistic idea
of equality.^ Deus non solum est in praestando benignissimus, sed
etiam in vindicando justissimus (Augustine: De. Lib. arb., II, i).
Pre-reformation theology does not reveal any trace of the New

' I.e. the notion of desert — reward and punishment correspond exactly.

(Tr.)

300

APPENDIX TO SECTION ONE

Testament idea of the "Righteousness of God", the SiKaioavvq
deov. Its re-discovery was indeed the most decisive act of
Luther. Luther himself was conscious that his vital experience
at Erfurt, when the true Biblical meaning of Romans i : i6 ff.
dawned upon him, was the moment when the Reformation was
born. But the fact that Luther always related this righteousness
only to faith, and not to God Himself, thus that he always
translated "SiKocLoavvrj deov" by "the righteousness which
counts in the sight of God", meant that the newly discovered
idea of "righteousness" had no influence upon the doctrine of
God. Hence the "righteousness of God" was still regarded as
that "justitia" which is contrasted with grace: the righteousness
which demands the keeping of the Law, and which punishes all
falling away from the law. Thus Johann Gerhard, for instance,
{Loci theol., I, 346) formulates the Righteousness of God as
aeterna constans et immota voluntas suum cuique tribuendi —
the influence of the idea of the Law of Nature, from Roman
law, is unmistakable. So, too, that decisive passage in Paul,
Romans 3 : 21 ff., especially "for the proof of His righteousness",
is understood in the sense that the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ
has done enough to meet the divine demand for righteousness,
in entire agreement with Anselm's doctrine of "satisfaction".
No theologian of those days noticed that in the thought of Paul
everything in the Christian revelation was included under the
conception of the "righteousness of God", that in the thought
of Paul the point at issue was precisely not that in the Cross the
contradiction between righteousness (or justice) and mercy
had been removed, but the identity of both (cf. on this point
the excellent presentation of the orthodox doctrine of the penal
sufferings of Christ in Ritschl {Rechtf. u. vers., I, ch. 6). Thus the
real Biblical doctrine of the Righteousness of God was not
understood, even by orthodox Protestant theologians. The
reason for this can only be perceived when we look at the
whole tradition of the doctrine of God. The traditional idea of
righteousness is part of the theologia naturalis, of speculative
theology, which dominates the whole doctrine of the Divine
Attributes. Only gradually, above all under the influence of
modern Biblical exegesis, does an understanding begin to dawn
of the difference between this rational idea and the Biblical idea
of righteousness. The essay of the Old Testament scholar
Diestel, "Die Idee der Gerechtigkeit im Alten Testament" {Jahr-
biicher fiir deutsche Theologie, i860), a pioneer effort in this
direction, even though the Biblical research of later days had

301

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

to moderate, to some extent, the extreme swing of the pen-
dulum represented in Diestel's thesis against the "juridical"
idea of righteousness (cf. on this point the article by Schrenk
already mentioned on SiVtj and SiKaioavvr} in the N. T. Worter-
buch). Diestel saw that the Old Testament, when it speaks of
the Righteousness of God, means something which is not in
dialectical opposition to His grace, but that, on the contrary,
more or less it means the same thing, and that this relation —
which cannot be grasped on rational lines, is intelligible from
the standpoint of the Covenant, or of the Kingdom of God.

And yet even that rational element of retribution is con-
tained within the idea as a whole; hence it also contains that
element of "juridical" punitive "righteousness" which is what
we mean by "justice" at the present day. This retributive
justice operates wherever the "righteousness" of grace is not
accepted. This second element — ^which corresponds to the idea
of the divine wrath in Holiness — was hidden from Diestel.

It is now essential that we should try to carry the process of
definition further, till the Biblical idea of righteousness (justice)
is really understood. This, of course, involves abandonment of
the old rational idea of justice. Yet this exegetical truth has
scarcely borne any fruit yet within dogmatics. In the thought
of Karl Barth, it is true, the fundamental adjustment to revela-
tion is present {Kirchl. Dogm., II, pp. 413-57); but the tension
between the rational, and the revelation idea of "righteousness"
(justice) is not brought out clearly. A good deal of work still
needs to be done, until at last, in the science of dogmatics, we
take the idea of God's Righteousness seriously, which has
already been perceived in Biblical studies. We must not forget,
however, that the Biblical scholar has an easier task than the
systematic theologian, since the problem which is raised by the
present-day use of the word "righteousness" does not trouble
him.

302

SECTION TWO
THE WILL OF GOD

CHAPTER 22

THE ETERNAL DIVINE DECREES AND THE DOCTRINE
OF ELECTION

Is it not presumptuous to think man can discuss the eternal
Divine Decrees? Should we not be dissuaded from such an
undertaking, particularly from the standpoint of the Biblical
revelation, since the Holy Scriptures so decidedly and so plainly
direct our attention to the historical revelation ? For this surely
implies that we ought to remain content with what God has
shown us within the sphere of our human experience, and not
even wish to kuow the eternal mysteries which God keeps to
Himself? Is not a doctrine of the Eternal Decrees rather like
that attempt to "clamber up the steep ascent to the Supreme
Majesty", against which Luther warned us so urgently, when he
said: "ego scio, ego expertus sum" ? Thus is not the very attempt
to formulate a doctrine of Predestination something to be
condemned out of hand, even before it has been begun ?

The history of the doctrine of Predestination itself teaches us
that with the question of the Divine Decrees we have entered
the danger-zone, in which faith may suffer severe injury, and
theological thinking may easily stray into disastrous error. ^
And yet the attempt cannot be renounced, not because our
thought itself drives us to it, but because the witness of revela-
tion in the Scriptures forces this subject upon our attention,
for theological consideration. It is not merely the — compara-
tively meagre — mention of the "Divine Decrees", which moves
us to this, but the fact that Election constitutes the centre of
the Old and the New Testament. The content of the divine
revelation in Jesus Christ is simply the "mystery of His Will" j^
that which is disclosed to faith within earthly history, in the
Incarnate Word, in the Crucified Son of God, is nothing less
than the eternal Will of God. "Having made known unto us the

' See below, pp. 340 ff. » Eph. i : 9.

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THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He
purposed in Him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the
times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens,
and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say, in Whom also we
were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to
the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of
His will. "I When God reveals Himself, He reveals eternity: the
eternal Origin and the eternal End, that which "was" before
all history, and that which will be behind, or after, all history,
this (from our standpoint) twofold eternity, between which
hangs our earthly historical existence like a suspension bridge
between two pillars, supported by them as it sways in mid-air
over the abyss of Nothingness.

Jesus Christ came in order to reveal this eternity, and to
integrate our life within the dimension of this twofold eternity,
in order that our life should not be lost in nothingness. For
apart from this integration into eternity "we pass our years as
a tale that is told".^ Apart from this foundation in eternity,
and this goal in eternity, the whole history of humanity is a
mere nothing, which is swallowed up in the whirlpool of the
temporal. Without this firm foundation in our eternal Origin,
and without the firm goal in the eternity at the end of the ages,
man literally lives "for the day"; he is like a mayfly which
lives for a day, and then disappears; his life is played out on
the surface of the finite. Only through his relation to eternity
does he acquire depth; the "surface" is the finite, the temporal,
eternity alone is "depth". And this dimension of "depth" is the
same as the dimension of "meaning". Either life has an eternal
meaning or it has no meaning at all. For what is meaning, if it
can be finally swallowed up in meaninglessness, and annihi-
lated? And what sort of "meaning" would there be without an
eternal foundation ?

It is not only the Christian Faith which places human life —
and life as a whole — within the dimension of eternity. This
takes place also in non-Christian religions. It occurs above all
in that school of thought which, alongside of the Christian
message, has influenced the spiritual and intellectual life of the
Western world most deeply and permanently, the idealistic
philosophy of the Greeks. Even the philosophy of Plato teaches
man to seek and to find meaning in eternity. This eternity of
the world of the Ideas is, however, of such a kind that it depre-
ciates the value of the Temporal and the Historical, so that all
» Eph. i: 9-II. (R.V.) » Ps. 90: 9.

304

THE DIVINE DECREES AND ELECTION

that has a share in "becoming", by this very fact becomes
more or less an illusion. As a crowd of human beings seems
small and insignificant, if viewed from a great height, so there
is a view of eternity which assigns no decisive value to temporal
happenings, because temporal events and eternity cannot be
connected by means of the idea of the "decisive event". Where
eternity is conceived from the human end, there is no decisive
event, no event which unites us with eternity, there are merely
ideas which conceive timeless, eternal truth, and in so doing
contrast the Timeless and Eternal, as true Being, with that
which is merely temporal and transitory. Temporal events with
the quality of a "time of decision" only exist where eternity
itself has entered into time, where the Logos who became Man
enters into History, and reveals to man, lost in the temporal,
his origin and his eternal end, and makes these the goal of his
decision of faith. Only through this revelation of eternity does
our history itself acquire a share in eternity. ^

Thus it is this revealed eternity alone, through which, and in
which, I, this individual human being, this individual person,
receive eternal meaning, and my individual personal existence
is taken seriously. One who only knows an Eternity which is
intellectually conceived — an eternity of Ideas, an eternity of
intellectual truth and of spiritual values — finds his personal
existence merged in the life of the All ;2 in the Christian revela-
tion of eternity, however, my eyes are opened to perceive the
truth that God, My Lord, regards me from all eternity, with the
gaze of everlasting love, and therefore that my individual per-
sonal existence and life now receive an eternal meaning.
Through the fact that my eye of faith meets the gaze of the
Eternal God, that I know that I am being "looked at" by His
everlasting love — "Thine eyes saw me when as yet there was
none of me" 3 — I myself acquire an eternal dignity. The call that
is addressed to me through Jesus Christ from all eternity calls
me to my eternal destiny. To be called from the eternity of God
to eternal communion with God — that is the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. Briefly, that is the meaning of the New Testament
message of eternal election. How, then, can we not see that this
message of election is the same as the good news of "sonship"
and of the Kingdom of God ?

' In the Old Testament both the revelation of Eternity and the decisive
character of Time are equally provisional and incomplete.

» We should not quote the Platonic doctrine of Immortality as a counter-
argument. In so far as it is personal and individual, it is religious myth; in so
far as it is philosophical it is impersonal. 3 Ps. 139: 16.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD
(2)

On the other hand, how terrible and paralysing is all talk of
predestination, of a decree of God, by which everything that is
to happen has already been established from all eternity. Is
there anything more devastating for the freedom and reality of
decision than this idea that everything is predetermined?
Does not this reduce all history to something which has already
been determined, and is being carried out on these preconceived
lines ? and thus that all decision and all freedom is an illusion ?
Such a view makes human history a mere game of chess, in
which the human figures are moved about on the board by a
higher unseen Hand, or like a piece of tapestry of many colours,
into which the many destinies of mankind are woven, but
woven without the assistance of men, a tapestry already pre-
pared from all eternity, which is merely unrolled in time. In
such a view is there any room for that element which alone
gives meaning and dignity to human life, the element of
responsible, freely-willed action?

Finally — if everything is predetermined by the Divine
decree, how could any other court of appeal be responsible for
this happening than His who had predetermined it ? If every-
thing is predetermined, evil as well as good, godlessness as
well as faith, hell as well as heaven, "being lost" as well as
"being saved", if it is predetermined, by God's eternal decree,
that not only the temporal, but also the eternal destinies of men
are assigned unequally, so that some, from eternity, are des-
tined for eternal death, and others for eternal life — is it possible
to call the One who has promulgated this decretum horrible a
loving Father of all men? If this hidden decree of God lies
behind the revelation of Jesus Christ, what meaning has the
call to faith, repentance, and thankful trust? Does not this
doctrine menace the whole meaning of the message of the love
of God, and the seriousness of the decision of faith?

If there is any point at which it is urgent that the Church
should re-examine the content of the Christian Message, it is
certainly at the point of the doctrine of the Divine Decree, and
of Election.

(3)
Reformed theologians usually make a distinction between a
decree of Creation and a decree of Election. ' The Scriptural

' Cf. WoUeb, Christ. Theol. Comp., p. 20.
306

THE DIVINE DECREES AND ELECTION

evidence offers no support for this view; in any case the ideas
which characterize the eternal decree in the New Testament
are not appHed to the Creation. ^ This is not due, as we shall see,
to any accident of language, but to a strictly observed order.
There can, however, be no doubt that the origin of the Creation
is simply and solely the thought and the will of God.^ The
world exists, because God wills it ; the world is as it is because
God wills it so. Hence it is the expression, manifestation,
revelation, of His thought and will. Because thought, God's
thought, God's wisdom, lies at its foundation, there is in it an
order which can be perceived; that is why it is accessible to
knowledge, that is why it has a logical rational aspect. To use
the language of the ancients, it is "comprehensible to reason".
But because it has been created by the free will of God it is
"contingent", not necessary. The idea of the contingentia mundi
only became a subject for philosophy through Christianity.

This is the first great difference between the Greek theory of
the cosmos and the Christian doctrine of Creation. For Greek
philosophical thinking the Cosmos is not only accessible to
reason but it is rational, because it has not been created by
means of the will of God, but because it proceeds, with timeless
necessity, out of the Eternal Logos. For speculative thought
there is no Creation, because it has no freedom to create or not
to create. As the effect springs from the cause, so the world
issues from the Logos. In this view there is no room for the
irrational element of will. The world comes from eternity
because it has no beginning. But it is precisely the doctrine of
Election which understands the world as something which was
not there "at the beginning", but that it is something which
was preceded by something else. Almost always, wherever the
doctrine of Election is mentioned, it is emphasized that this
took place "before the Creation of the world". 3

The second fundamental difference between the idea of the
Cosmos and the idea of Creation is connected with an idea
which at first sight seems to be a common element to both : the
Logos. The Cosmos is pervaded by the Logos, it issues from the
Logos. This Logos is the ultimate, fundamental presupposition
of thought. It is the necessary principle of necessary thought,
hence it is the firm support for the whole of philosophy. As

' The TTpo in: Trpoyvwaig, Trpo-Oeaig, irpo-copiafiog, everywhere means:
irpo K(xrx^oXfjg Koafxov.

» In spite of the mystical flavour of the phrase "without form and void",
this is the meaning of Gen. i : i ff . — expressed still more strongly in Rom. 4:17
and Heb. 11: 3. 3 Eph. 1:4;! Peter i: 20; Matt. 25: 34.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

such, it is an abstract impersonal idea. But the Bibhcal idea of
Creation is based upon a different Logos, upon that Word
which "was in the beginning", "without whom nothing has
been created",^ and is identical with the Son of God. In
Him who is the "Image of the invisible God", the "firstborn of
all creation" — "in Him all things are created", "for through
Him, and unto Him, are all things, and He is before all things,
and in Him all things cohere". ^ Not an impersonal Logos of
thought, but the thought and will, the loving will of God, who
meets us in the Person of Christ, the "Son of His love", 3 is the
foundation and the origin of all existence.

In this connexion the truth which we have already seen
acquires new significance, that the world, it is true, was created
through — Sia — the Son, but not hy — vtto — the Son, that it has
been created in Him and unto Him, but that He Himself is
never called the Creator. It has pleased God the Creator to
create the world in the Son, through the Son, and unto the
Son. The fact that between the Creator and the Creation there
stands the Mediator of creation means that the world is an act
of the freedom of God, that it does not proceed from the Logos.
The Son is the meaning of the world, for whom God in free
decision determines and creates the world. If it be the Eternal
Son, yet it is also the free resolve of God, that He creates
the world in the Son and for the Son. 4 The self -revelation of
God as the Origin and End of all creation is God's free act.
Hence the Scriptures suggest that "God" alone is the Subject
of Creation — not the Son, although He "gave unto the Son to
have life in Himself". The freedom to design and to create,
and the content of that which has been thus planned, must be
distinguished from one another, if the Creation is to be an act
of freedom. God's free act is the plan of the world "in Jesus
Christ".

(4)
The Creation of the world is connected with the decree of
Election by the fact that the mediator of both is the Son, the
Son whom God "loved before the foundation of the world". 5
He is the Son-Logos, who, as the Incarnate One, gives us both
the knowledge of Election and the knowledge that the world
has been created through the Son, in the Son and unto the Son.
Thus the origin, meaning, and purpose of the world are only to

' John i: I. » Col. i: 15-17. 3 Col. i: 13.

4 Eph. 3:9. 5 John 17: 24.

308

THE DIVINE DECREES AND ELECTION

be perceived where faith in the historical revelation of the love
of God, in the calling to Divine sonship through the Crucified,
becomes the assurance of eternal election. The truth which
concerns the Creation is — both in point of time and of fact — •
subordinate to the truth which concerns Election. This is the
reason why the Bible does not speak of a decree of Creation.
The Creation is subordinate to Election, it is neither co-ordi-
nated with it nor super-ordinated above it. The way of truth
proceeds from the historical revelation to the eternal Election,
and only through that to the Creation. This is of decisive im-
portance for the understanding of Election itself.

The first truth which the doctrine of Election contains is not
the general one, a "decretum generate",^ as the formula of the
theologians is worded — dubiously — which is then followed by
the "decretum speciale" of personal Election. In the Bible, most
emphatically, this is not the way in which Election is mentioned.
For this order of ideas is based upon a mistaken idea of faith.
In the New Testament faith is not directed to something
general, but to something personal. Faith is the encounter
between me, as an individual person, and Jesus Christ ; it is not
faith in a general statement, in a doctrine. Since the individual,
sinful, human being meets the gracious, generous will of God in
Jesus Christ the Crucified One, and through Him is "rescued
from the power of darkness", ^ from the wrath of God, and is
raised to the plane of sonship, he gains an insight into the
background of eternity; he experiences and hears the word of
the historical calling as the word of eternal Election. Faith is,
first of all, a "Thou-relation", and only after that is it know-
ledge of God's relation to the world, to Creation. The truth
revealed to the believer — as one to whom the word of justifying
grace and sonship in Jesus Christ has been granted — is, first of
all, that which "was before the foundation of the world", and
only after that does he learn the other truth : that the world as
a whole derives its origin, its meaning, and its preservation,
from the very Son whom he has learned to know as "the Son of
His love". Faith is directly related to the eternal, to the will of
God directed to the person, with His decree of election "before
the foundation of the world", not with the created world itself.
The individual human being, the one who is "called", possesses
his direct relation with the God who "elects", and with His
will, which precedes everything else — so personally, and so

' In the thought of the Reformed theologians the decretum generate is identi-
cal with the Decree of Creation. * Col. i : 13.

309

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

intensely is all this directed to the "Thou". The truth of Elec-
tion is not the result of a deduction from a general statement ;
faith is, and remains — even where its content is the eternal
election — a direct, immediate, personal relation, which is the
exact opposite of a general theory.

Faith possesses this character owing to its historical origin.
This alone is the starting-point, to this all must be referred, if
— in contrast to that which the theologians call "predestination"
— we are to understand what the Bible means by Election.
Israel experienced its election as an historical event: "For thou
art an holy People unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath
chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all
peoples that are upon the face of the earth. "^ Through Moses
and the Prophets this people became aware that Yahweh was
speaking to it in the events of history, as God's incomprehen-
sible, free, unfathomable act, an act which is also a Word.^ Its
election is the same as the peculiar course of History by which
God leads this People — and this people alone, among all
nations. The Election of Israel, indeed, consists in this his-
torical encounter in which the Holy and Merciful God manifests
Himself to it as "the Lord thy God", and thus makes Israel
His own People, and in so doing singles it out from all other
nations upon earth. 3 The fact that this election is based solely
upon the free election of God, upon the unfathomable love of
Yahweh, and not upon any quality inherent in Israel itself, is
brought home to it in the fact that Yahweh can, and may,
reject and cast out His chosen People. 4 The basis of election
never lies in the one who is chosen, but exclusively in the One
who chooses. 5 Election means precisely this: that Israel knows
itself to be wholly dependent upon the grace of the One who
has chosen her, and that she ought to live in this attitude of
continual dependence. The historical character of the fact of
election, and the freedom of God in election, are one and the
same thing. "The Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth
out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be unto Him a people
of inheritance. . . .^ For this historical fact of election is truth
which cannot be deduced by arguments: it is God in action.
Unique and Unfathomable.

All this, however, is only fulfilled in the historical events of
the revelation in Christ. There alone does the Historical be-

' Deut. 14: 2. » Amos 2: 3.

3 Cf. the excellent remarks by Quell in the N.T. Theol. Worterbuch, IV,
163 ff.

4 Amos 3:2; Jer. 5: 12; 7: j 5 Deut. 7: 6 ff. * Deut. 4: 20.

310

THE DIVINE DECREES AND ELECTION

come the Unique in the strict sense of the word, there alone is
the absolutely unfathomable character of the divine Act of love
fully manifested — in the "folly of the Cross", ^ in the justifica-
tion of the sinner, in the vicarious suffering of Him who, as the
Holy One, had every right to be angry and to condemn. Elec-
tion here takes place through the fact that the love of God
enters into the curse which sinful humanity has drawn down
upon itself. 2 At the Cross of Christ that "nevertheless" of the
Divine Love takes place, so that it is not the sinner who is
annihilated, but the curse of sin which separates man from God. 3
At the Cross we hear the call of God, a call which has only one
condition : that we should hear it as the unconditional call that
it is, that is, that we should believe. 4

Thus, as Israel perceived and received its election in the
Historical "Act-Word" of God, so the sinful human being per-
ceives and receives his own election in the historical "Act-
Word", in the Incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ, through
faith: "Mine art thou. My son." "Thine am I, Thy Father."5
Here, too, primarily election is the same as in the Old Covenant
the encounter with the God who calls in love, the God who calls
us to Himself. The "elect" is the "one who is called", one who
in faith accepts the call to sonship with God, and to com-
munion with God. Only the individual can perceive this call as
a call addressed to him personally, just as Israel had received
and perceived it as the truth, "I am the Lord Thy God". Now,
however, this call is not addressed to a nation, but to the sinful
individual person, for this call desires that which the individual
person alone can give: personal decision, the obedience of
faith.6

But in order that this call should be really perceived as the
call of the Eternal God, since the Son is known as the Eternal
Son of the Father, as the one who has come from beyond all
that is created, as He in whom the eternal secret of the Father
is manifested, it is understood as a call from eternity, and the
encounter with it in historical reality becomes the encounter
with the Eternal will of God. 7 In that I know myself as beloved
in the Eternal Son, I know that I have been loved from all
eternity. The eVAoyi], the eternal election, opens the door to
the kAt^ctis". But as in our knowledge of the Son it is not the

I I Cor. i: i8. » Rom. 8:3. 3 Col. 2: 14.

4 Rom. 3 : 22 : "unto all them that believe" ; 3 : 26 : "him that hath faith in Jesus".

5 Rom. 8: 15.

* Rom. 1:5. Directly connected with Election: i Peter 1:2.
7 Eph. 1 : 5-

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

pre-existence of the Son which predominates, but His historical
act, and we gaze beyond that at the eternal background, for a
moment as it were, but we do not stay there — so is it here. The
truth of eternal election is seen by the eye of faith, but it does
not stay there, ^ because it is fitting to dwell on the historical
encounter. If this background becomes the foreground, then it
is almost inevitable that the idea of faith should become
speculative, and then perverted, by trying to deal with matters
which are too high for it, which only leads to the production of
illusory "truths" of the most dangerous kind.

If the starting-point remains firmly established at the his-
torical centre, and if faith continues to perceive that the "call"
of Jesus Christ is the caU of God, then it is impossible that
there should be any contradiction between election and respon-
sibility. One who knows that he has thus been "called" by God
as son, and has been placed within the ranks of "His own",
knows that in so doing he is called into the service of the Holy
God, as a "slave of Jesus Christ", as one who no longer belongs
unto himself, but to Him who has called him out of darkness
"into His marvellous light". ^ He knows that he has been called
"to be conformed to the image of His Son", 3 to die with Him
who calls him — as the "old man" — and to rise with Him — to a
new life. 4 Hence the evidence of the New Testament does not
contain a trace of that whole complex of problems connected
with the doctrine of Predestination, dealing especially with
moral freedom and responsibility. Thus the tormenting and
insoluble problems raised by an erroneous belief — Predestina-
tion— e.g. how can fore-ordination and freedom, predestination
and responsibility co-exist? — not only do not constitute any
problem for the New Testament, but are regarded as truths
which are naturally and inseparably connected. As the election of
Israel to a covenant-relation with God constituted an obliga-
tion to service, and indeed was based upon an exclusive relation
to the service of Yahweh, and since the whole unique ethos of
the people of the Old Covenant is based upon this election, so
the election in Jesus Christ constitutes the foundation of the
special ethos of the Christian Church. Indeed, we might even
call the Christian ethic an "ethic of election". 5 It is the respon-

• The passages which deal with the eternal election, like the allusions to the
Pre-existence of the Son, are few compared with those which deal with the
historical Work of Christ.

' I Peter 2:9. 3 Rom. 8: 29. 4 Rom. 6: 5 ff.

5 In spite of Eph. 1:11 and 2 : 10, however, this is not actually said. Perhaps
it would be better to describe it as an "ethic of the calling".

312

THE DIVINE DECREES AND ELECTION

sibility of those who are "called to be saints," who in their KXfjais
experience both the eternal election and the call to service in love.
This connexion comes out particularly plainly in that passage
where the eternal election is expressed with special emphasis and
meaning: "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him
in love . . . for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk
in them. "I

Not only, do election and freedom not cancel each other out,
but freedom is based upon the fact of election. Only he who
knows that he is elect, who accepts his election in Jesus Christ,
is truly free. As already — to use this analogy on the natural
plane — the Moral Law, according to Kant, is the basis of
moral freedom, so the fact of belonging to the Holy and Loving
God in Jesus Christ, that is, the eternal election, existence in
the Good, freedom from the compulsion of sin, and thus genuine
freedom, are ajl based on faith. "If therefore the Son shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed. "^ "Where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is liberty."3 The only true freedom is to know
that from all eternity we have been destined, through the Son,
for communion with God.

(5)

Now that we have defined the right approach to the true
doctrine of Election, which is in accordance with revelation,
there are still certain misunderstandings and misinterpretations
which we must discuss; for their own sake, and owing to their —
to some extent — disastrous consequences, they need some
attention. One of them, which is very recent, and therefore has
not yet had any widespread influence, can only be mentioned
briefly. To the question : Who elects and who is elected ? — each
time the answer is, Jesus Christ. 4 Now it cannot be denied that
Jesus Christ, as the Son of His Love, as the One upon whom the
evSo^ioc, the " benepiacitum" of God, rests, is the Elect of God, 5
and that, on the other hand, as the One who Himself calls His
own to Himself, He is the One who elects. ^ But, above all, the
fundamental idea in this view is that to speak of Election
means to speak of Jesus Christ, in entire harmony with the
witness of the Scriptures.

And yet we cannot accept this view: that the Subject of the

I Eph. i: 4 and 2: lo. » John 8: 36.

3 2 Cor. 3: 17. 4 See Appendix, pp. 346 ff.

5 Thus explicitly in i Peter 2: 4, 6. 6 See John 15: 16.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Eternal election is Jesus Christ. Where the New Testament
speaks of the eternal election of the faithful in Christ Jesus, the
Subject of Election is solely, and without exception, God, just
as the Subject of Creation solely, and without exception, is God.
Jesus Christ is the Mediator of Election, as He is the Mediator
of Creation. In Him, through Him, but not by Him we are elect,
as the world has been created in Him, through Him, and unto
Him, but not by Him. What is the meaning of this distinction?
Not only loyalty to the explicit witness of the Scriptures is
here involved, but far more than this: the freedom of God.
God has freedom in Jesus Christ to elect, and outside of Jesus
to reject. But if Jesus Christ Himself becomes the Subject of
the eternal Election, then there is no Divine freedom, in Christ
to elect, outside of Christ to reject. Then neither in God nor in
man is an "Either-Or" possible; then in Jesus Christ the de-
cision for every human being has been anticipated; then the
elect alone exist and there are no more reprobate than there is
a wrath of God; for then the only one who is rejected — and this
conclusion is explicitly drawn by those who take this view — is
Jesus Christ the Crucified, who is at the same time the One who
is the Elect from all eternity. But this means that — not only
for those who believe, who are "in Christ", but for all, whether
believers or not, the Judgment has been abrogated, the possi-
bility of being "lost" has been taken away from everyone.
There is no decision. Thus the result of this view is the most
thoroughgoing doctrine of Universalism that has ever been
formulated. I

Hence in the witness to revelation in the New Testament the
Subject of election is God alone. It is His free purpose which
places us sinners, through faith, in the reality of the Son of His
Love, as it is His purpose to send us His Son, to reveal Himself
to us, and to impart Himself to us. All the expressions used in
the New Testament which deal with eternal Election point to
this purpose. 2 The fact that He places us within the "Kingdom
of the Son of His love" — is His beneplaciium, this is the "mys-
tery of His will". In Himself the Son signifies Election:
where the Son is, there is Election; but where the Son is not,
there is no election. But the Son is only present where there is
faith, hence in the New Testament the "elect", and they alone,
are those who believe. For this cause alone faith is decision in
which the stakes are salvation or ruin ; it is not a sham decision,

' On this see Appendix, p. 348.

» So above aWTipoopH^eLV, and TrpdSecrtg, strengthened by /5ouA?) and diXrj^ia..

THE DIVINE DECREES AND ELECTION

where everything has aheady been decided beforehand. The
consequences may be serious, if, in order to escape from the
doctrine of a double predestination, we take the wrong path,
and end up with Universahsm. Here a mistaken emphasis upon
"Christ alone" has led to a "solution" which is no less dangerous
than the opposite view which it desires to rule out. It is the
same erroneous Christ-Monism which we have met already in
the doctrine of the Trinity; the absolute equation of God and
Christ, by means of which the Son, from being the Mediator of
Creation becomes the Creator, which leads necessarily to the
view that the Son is the Subject of the eternal Election, and in
so doing the idea of Judgment is ignored, and the possibility of
being finally lost is eliminated.

The two other misunderstandings lead in the opposite direc-
tion. Through two ideas, which have crept in through philo-
sophy, the connexion between election and responsibility has
been obscured: the idea of Causality, and a wrong idea of
Eternity.

. (6)
Causality. — It was especially the Reformers' interest in the
"sola gratia" , the desire to get rid of all traces of synergism,
which led the Reformers to understand Man as a mere object of
Grace, and thus faith simply as the working of divine Grace.
The dubious middle term here was "mere passive" , that is, in
relation to the reception of grace man is wholly passive. The
right element in this idea was that man is solely receptive, that
faith is neither a merit nor an achievement. But now, this
theological idea led to a psychological idea of passivity. Instead
of that which is "purely receptive" arose the idea of "purely
effected". Thus Man became the object of the working of
grace, "truncus et lapis". ^ The personal relation between God
and Man became a causal relation: God the cause, faith the
effect. At that time men did not know that even in the sphere
of physical causality there is no mere passivity but only re-
activity. From the theological postulate of the "sola gratia"
men built up the theory of a purely passive process in the soul,
that is, a process in which faith was understood simply and
solely as the effect of divine grace as its cause. Of course, such
a faith has no connexion with that which the Bible calls "faith",
it is a purely artificial theory of theologians, which had no basis
in anything men could imagine in the rest of their experience.

' Thus Formula of Concord Sol. Decl., II, 19, 24.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

The postulate was laid down: That which we know as faith is
solely the effect of the divine grace as cause, without asking any
further, whether the application of the causal idea to the
personal relation between "Word of God and Faith" is in any
way permissible or possible.

This mistaken view of faith, however, also affected the
understanding of Election. Election, then, became "determina-
tion". Through the eternal election man is determined, his lot
has been fixed. The pattern on the tapestry has already been
woven before man begins his actual existence : life only means
the unrolling of the tapestry which is already finished. If this is
what Election means, then certainly there is no more radical
determinism than that which is contained in the doctrine of
Election or Predestination. It was indeed Luther himself who,
in his eagerness to combat the doctrine of freedom taught by
Erasmus, the wrong kind of indeterminism, and thus to ward
off the menace to the doctrine of the "sola gratia" , slipped
into this deterministic line, and could not do enough to ex-
press the complete passivity of man, by the use of all kinds of
causal images and ideas. At a later stage Luther became aware
of his error, being enlightened by the true Scriptural doctrine. ^

Behind this dangerous doctrinal development there lies a fatal
confusion of ideas. What these theologians really want to say is
that of himself man is incapable of doing the will of God and
of believing in Christ, and thus that faith and freedom are
wholly the gift of God. That is, in point of fact, the teaching of
the Bible and its view of God and His relation with sinful man
which springs from revelation. But all this lies within the
dimension: "Word — responsibility", "Divine Person — human
person". This means that man can never earn grace, and
further, that he cannot even rightly understand the word of
grace and believe it, save as the Holy Spirit opens his heart to
do so. But in all this man remains "person", and the trans-
action between God and man remains a personal one, some-
thing which takes place within the sphere of responsibility,
and it ought never to be transferred into the dimension of
"power — thing", "cause — effect". Even sinful man is a subject,
not an object, and even "given" grace is a personal act, and not
the cause of an effect. In the truth of Scripture this personal
fundamental relation is never affected, but it is explicitly pre-
served; hence man, even as the recipient of grace, remains a
responsible subject, and never becomes "truncus et lapis".

• See Appendix, pp. 343 ff.
316

THE DIVINE DECREES AND ELECTION

That is why we do not find in the Bible any traces of the inter-
pretation of Election in the sense of a deterministic doctrine of
Predestination.

(7)

The Concept of Eternity. — Just as devastating in its effect as
the introduction of the idea of causality was the introduction of
a wrong idea of Eternity. The eternal Election was understood
purely theoretically as the verdict of God which had been
pronounced before Time was, and in so doing it was likewise
torn out of the sphere of personal relation. It is, of course, true
that some of the Biblical terminology seemed to support such
a view; eternal election is always connected with the idea of
"before": npo-opiCetv, Trpo-rWeadoa. For a non-reflective faith
this was enough; for such a faith can tolerate the paradox:
being predetermined and being responsible. But when men
began to think, this primitive formulation was not sufficient ; for
once the process of reflection had begun, almost inevitably a
"personal" way of thinking tended to drift into an "impersonal"
point of view.

The Biblical understanding of Time is very closely connected
with the understanding of the personal. It is therefore radically
different from the physical and mathematical concept of Time.^
In the thought of the Biblical writers Time is always human
time, historical time, time of decision. In Jesus Christ, as
"Messianic Time" it becomes the "ultimum tempus" , which
means both "high time", and "the last times". Through Jesus
Christ, for the believer Time acquires an otherwise unknown
quality of decision; decision between Heaven and Hell, be-
tween being saved and being lost for ever, between the absolute
fulfilment of meaning and the absolute loss of all meaning. This
decision took place in Jesus Christ, in the "fulness of the
time". But that which has taken place once for all in Jesus
Christ as an universal event of History, must be "appro-
priated" by the believer. He, too, is placed within the sphere of
decision, and this decision is faith. In the sphere of faith earthly
Time is filled with the tension of eternity. In faith we, as it
were, anticipate eternity by sharing in it; we have already
been received into the heavenly citizenship of the supra-
temporal aeon. Hence in faith Time is not simply contrasted
with Eternity; it has itself a share in Eternity. It is controlled

• Cf. my article, "Das Einmalige und der Existenzcharakter" in Blatter fur
deutsche Philosophie, 1929.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

and filled with significance from thence. Thus it stands at the
furthest end of the scale, at whose opposite end there stands
the neutral, atomized Time of mathematical physics, which is
composed of purely time atoms. Between these two extremes,
of Physical Time and Messianic Time, there lies our ordinary
historical Time, where, it is true, decisions are made, but not
"the" Decision. But Messianic Time, the time of Jesus Christ
and of those who belong to Him, is the opposite of that atom-
ized time of the physicists ; it is held together by Eternity, just
as the bars in a musical work of art are held together by the
sign which denotes a "phrase". In Christ we live at the same
time both inside and outside of the sphere of ordinary time.

Thus the eternal Election is something quite different from a
decision which was made about us a very, very long while ago.
The eternal Election is rather that which in Jesus Christ be-
comes "Event" in Time. The eternal Election means that God's
Word of Love which now reaches me in Jesus Christ, reaches
me out of Eternity, that it goes "before" my existence, and my
decision, as that which makes it possible. Hence it does not
make my existence and my decision, which take place in time,
futile, it does not reduce my decision to an illusion; on the
contrary, through the truth of the eternal election my decision
of faith is seen to be one with the gracious choice of God. The
"Yes" of God to me, and my "Yes" to Him are one, indis-
solubly united. God loves me, before I exist, from all eternity,
in such a way that He wills me to be one who in the freedom of
decision says "Yes" to His call of love. The human answer is
included in the divine will as a free personal decision. Con-
versely, it is only the free personal decision in which this
eternal destiny is realized as a temporal act, in faith in Him in
whom God's eternal "Yes" to me reaches me in Time, in Jesus
Christ. The eternity grasped in faith does not eliminate the
freedom of the decision, indeed it constitutes its basis. In all
the world there is nothing so free, nothing which has so much
the character of decision, as the decision of faith, which in
Jesus Christ lays hold of the eternal "Yes", the eternal love of
God to me. And faith knows no other eternity, and should
know no other than that which thus establishes our decision of
faith as an act of freedom, as the answer to God's original Word.

(8)
There is, however, yet another misunderstanding to be re-
moved, which (with the two others) is the cause of the false

318

THE DIVINE DECREES AND ELECTION

idea of Election, the doctrine of a "double predestination".
Along with the idea of "Election" there arose, first of all, the
view that One who elects picks out certain individuals from a
given number, and thus we get the idea of "selection". The
Greek word e/cAeyecr^ai expresses this still more clearly than
our German word Erwdhlen. This idea is at first inseparable
from the Biblical idea of Election. Israel alone was chosen "out
of all nations" as the People of the Covenant and the revelation.
The phrase "you alone" is constantly used, and with special
emphasis. I But this idea of selection should not be understood
to mean that God was thus of necessity bound, or that He wills
to be so bound, to the recipient of His grace and His choice.
The "choosing" is merely the substratum of the divine free-
dom. All that this means is that the application of grace is
wholly based on God's generous love, that it is an act of royal
sovereignty. Israel, who has been thus "chosen" can also be
"rejected",^ and this election may be extended to other nations.
It has nothing >to do with Israel as such, nothing to do with
"numbers", it is entirely a matter depending on the freedom of
God. In the election or choice or singling out of Israel God
demonstrates His absolute freedom, the freedom, the unmoti-
vated character of His loving and His giving. And this choice
of selection always remains, it is true, on the part of God,
absolute and free, but on the part of man, of the People of
Israel, conditioned. There is contained within it a "conditionalis
divinus" : In so far as Israel obeys . . . Hence Election may also
give place to Rejection. It is indeed a "foedus monopieuron" ,3
the making of a Covenant, which is wholly based on God's
turning towards Israel, but is also a Covenant which includes
obedience, the correspondence of Israel, a genuine Covenant.

This preparatory stage of revelation, the election of Israel,
becomes, through the complete revelation in Jesus Christ, the
election of all who believe in Him. Here the idea of a "number",
from whom a selection is made, falls away; election no longer
has the apparent substratum of selection. The grace of God in
its absolute freedom is now wholly "localized" in Jesus Christ;
in Him the grace of God is present, therefore everyone who is
in Christ is of the "elect". The "elect" are the same as the
genuine believers. 4 There is a "selection" only in the sense
that that human condition, which was always included with-

' Amos 3:2; Deut. 7:6. » Hosea 5: 12 ff.; Is. 49: 6; 42: i; 60: 3.

3 A one-sided Covenant. Cf. Heppe, Dogmatik der ev. reformierten Kirche,

pp. 279 ff. 4 I Peter i : i.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

in the idea of Election, the election of Israel — here now
quite clearly stands out as the sole principle of selection: "that
all who believe in Him should not be lost";i that is the con-
tinuation in the particular sense of the universal statement:
"God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." The
absolute free grace of God, purely generous love — that is Jesus
Christ, It is applied to the world as a whole, it applies to all;
but it applies to all in so far as they believe. Whoever excludes
himself, is excluded; he who does not allow himself to be in-
cluded, is not included. 2 But he who allows himself to be in-
cluded, he who believes, is "elect". To believe in Jesus Christ
and to be of the elect is one and the same thing, just as not to
believe in Jesus Christ and not to be of the elect is the same
thing. There is no other selection than this, there is no other
number than that which is constituted by the fact of believing
or not believing.

As time went on, this identity of "being elect" and "faith",
which is obvious in the witness of the New Testament, was no
longer understood. When "faith" and "election" were severed
from the "personal" sphere; when "faith" had come to mean
theoretical doctrinal statement, since faith was no longer
understood as an "I-Thou" encounter, but as "truth" in the
third person, this correlation of election and faith was broken,
the conditionalis divinus which it contains was ignored, and
instead there was postulated a theoretical Numerus. It was at
this point that the doctrine arose that "some" are elect from all
eternity, and "others" are not. The doctrine of double pre-
destination has been formulated, and in the name of the God
of Love, the "horribile decretum" was taught, that just as some
have been "elect" from eternity, others, and indeed the large
majority, the "massa perditionis" , have been condemned from
all eternity to everlastmg destruction. And yet it was not some
of the lesser known and less important teachers of the Church
who held this terrible doctrine, but some of the best and
greatest. The fact that they did hold it, although it compelled
them to declare their belief in what they called a horribile
decretum — was because they believed that in so doing they were
being faithful to the teaching of the Bible. How they managed
to come to this position, and with what right they appeal to the
Scriptures for support, must now be examined in closer detail.

• John 3: 16; i: 12.

» The question whether the possibiHty of the decision of faith is limited to
this earthly life, in view of i Peter 3: 19, remains open.

320

CHAPTER 23

THE PROBLEM OF "DOUBLE PREDESTINATION"

It is particularly important for the Reformed theologian to
come to terms with this problem, because for centuries this
doctrine has been regarded as the typical doctrine of the
Reformed Churches, not only in contrast to the doctrine of the
Catholic Church, but also to that of the Lutheran Churches. It
is, of course, true, that Luther, in his earlier days, and especially
in his controversial pamphlet against Erasmus, did defend this
doctrine, but later on, without explicitly revoking this view,
he ceased to hold it in practice; possibly because he was not
fully aware of the extent to which his outlook had changed.^
He urged people not to devote too much attention to the theme
of Predestination. To a certain extent, therefore, his successors
were justified in appealing to his example when they were
endeavouring to controvert Calvin's teaching, which, coupled
with that of Zwingli, contains the most ruthless statement of
the idea of a double predestination. On the other hand, the
verdict of history, namely, that in Reformed theology the
doctrine of a double predestination is the "central dogma", 2
ought to be modified, at least to this extent ; we should recognize
that in Calvin's theology the doctrine of Predestination has
been wrongly equated with the actual heart of his belief,
namely, the doctrine of Election in Christ. How did our Fathers
in the Reformed Churches manage to teach this terrible theo-
logical theory in the name of the Biblical Gospel ?

(I)
In the case of Zwingli, the answer we must give to this ques-
tion is very different from that which we must give when we
come to consider Calvin, although both Reformers have certain
common ideas which point in the same direction. In the main,
Zwingli's doctrine of Predestination is presented in his great
sermon, De Providentia, delivered at Marburg. His very starting-
point shows that we are here dealing with speculative philo-
sophy, and not with Christian theology. This starting-point,
from which all that follows is developed, is the idea of God as

' See Appendix, pp. 343 ff.

» This has been the general view, especially since the publication of
A. Schweizer's book, Die protestantischen Zentral dogmen.

321

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

the "Summum bonum". This idea does not belong to the Idea of
God of the Bible and of revelation but to that of Platonist
speculation. The "Summum bonum" , which Zwingli uses here,
is simply the Neo-Platonist idea of Absolute Being with which,
with all the consequences which it entails, we are already
familiar in the doctrine of the Divine Attributes. Thus there is
nothing accidental in the fact that at the very outset Zwingli
appeals to the Greek pagan philosophers, who identified the
Good with the True, and that he further describes this as the
Unchangeable and the Simple. Zwingli is here developing the
idea of the "ev /cat rrav," under the impression that he is ex-
pounding the Christian doctrine of God. "Only the One, single
Highest Good is true, that is, simple, pure and sincere," From
this beginning he then — in a speculative, rational manner —
proceeds to derive the idea of Omniscience and Omnipotence,
supporting his ar^ment by appeals to Moses, Paul, Plato and
Seneca. He is entirely unaware of the immense gulf which
separates this speculative idea of the Absolute from the Biblical
Idea of God. Hence he does not hesitate to draw obviously
pantheistic conclusions from this conception: "Since there is
only One who is Unconditioned there can be no Other. . . .
From this it follows ... in view of Being and of existence all
must, without doubt, be divinity; for that is the being of aU
things." But when he expresses this view, even he seems to
wonder whether this sounds too philosophical, so he comforts
himself and his readers with the remark: "Does it matter if we
do speak of Divine and Religious truth in philosophical terms ?
For if we leave everything to the philosophers, without reflect-
ing that Truth always proceeds from the Holy Spirit, and that
aU Truth is the same, whatever be its source, we risk making
men hate the Truth." He then further expounds the idea of
the "ALL-One" : "Since all comes from the One, and is, consists,
moves, works, in the One, so this One is the only and real
Cause of all things. The so-called immediate causes (creaturely
causality) are actually not causes at all." In support of this
evident Pantheism Zwingli appeals to Pliny to defend him
against the reproach of calling Nature "God".

Secondly, with this speculative doctrine of the Absolute
Zwingli here combines a Platonic conception of Evil, which
derives evil from the lower sphere of sense. "Of itself, the mind
would love truth and righteousness like an angel, but it be-
comes obscured by the lower material of the body which makes
it powerless to follow the guidance of the spirit." In the further

322

"double predestination"

development of his thought Zwingh uses the Neo-Platonic idea
that evil is "necessary", in order that virtue should exhibit its
beauty. Only now, in the sixth chapter, do we come to the
actual subject itself, introduced by the transitional phrase that
he wrote the previous part of the work in order to show that
not merely the righteousness — as the theologians have taught
— but also the "goodness" of God, is the source of Predestina-
tion; here again, the "goodness" of God is not understood in
the Biblical sense as a good disposition, but in the Neo-Platonist
philosophical sense as the "Summum Bonum = Summum Ens".

After this the doctrine of Predestination develops quite
simply, and as it were inevitably, out of the doctrine of God as
the sole Cause of all that happens. Not even the idea of Evil
frightens Zwingli away from this "single-track" argument. For
he says that if a man commits a crime, as we call it, that is an
improper expression; for here God is acting, only we cannot
call His action a "crime", since it comes under no law. "The
adultery of David, so far as God was the cause of it, is no more
sinful than the action of the bull who leaps upon the herd."
Another analogy he uses is that of a robber who kills his victim :
God incites the robber to the fatal act of killing. But if it is
God who incites the robber to commit this assault, then "is not
the robber forced to do this ? I admit that he is, but then he is
obliged to be executed". Thus everything is said to be derived
from the pan-causality of God; if God is the Cause of sin, and
of the condemnation which this incurs, then still more is He
the Cause of the Good, and of salvation, to eternal life. Then
everything is determined in the will of God; indeed, Zwingli
goes further still and declares that everything is God's work
alone.

All this has nothing, nothing whatever, to do with Christian
theology, but it is a rational metaphysic, partly Stoic in char-
acter, and partly Neo-Platonist; it is a "foreign body" in the
theology of the Reformer which is otherwise so clearly Biblical,
and can only be understood in the light of the whole theological
tradition. Bullinger, Zwingli's successor, redressed his friend's
error by the wholly Scriptural exposition of the doctrine of
Election, which he has given in the Confessio Helvetica, X.

(2)

Calvin's doctrine of Predestination is quite different, both in
character and origin. But first of all we must clear away various
views which have been expressed in the history of dogma. It is

323

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

not true that the idea of the Divine Omnipotence, in the sense
of the "potestas absoluta" , is the axis round which Calvin's
thinking revolves. Rather, it is quite evident that the centre of
his theological thinking, as well as of his preaching, is the
historic work of revelation and redemption in Jesus Christ.
Secondly, it is not true that Calvin's thought is dominated by
the idea of the Divine Glory. It is true that, as in the Bible, it
does play a large part; but it is never severed from that of
salvation; the Holiness of God, His will to manifest His Glory,
and the Mercy through which God gives Himself to the sinful
creature to redeem it, are all equally emphasized by Calvin —
when we look at his work as a whole. We must never separate
his emphasis on the "soli deo gloria" from the "sola gratia" . If
we must speak of a "central point" in the theology of Calvin,
then we can only single out this one: the doctrine of Election
in Jesus Christ. Then how are we to understand Calvin's
doctrine of a double Predestination when we take these
presuppositions into account, and add to them the formal
principle of absolute loyalty to the Scriptures, the determi-
nation never to teach anything that is not taught by the
Scriptures ?

(i) Like Luther's doctrine of Justification "by faith alone",
Calvin's doctrine of "the grace of Jesus Christ alone" leads to
the idea of free divine Election. This central truth of the
Biblical Faith must be secured at all costs, against all attack.
Since the opponents of the "sola fide" or of the "sola gratia" , in
order to discredit this doctrine, argued that "Grace" must then
be an arbitrary "choice", and thus that the "sola fide" implies
the doctrine of double predestination; Calvin, if we may thus
express it, seems to have taken up this challenge, saying: "Very
well, then! So be it! Let us admit this 'double predestination!' "
Two observations seem to prove that this was actually the case :
Calvin's first outline of the Institutio, of 1536, does not mention
the doctrine of double predestination: on the other hand, there
is a great deal about Election in Jesus Christ, and about God's
operations in the hearts of the "reprobate". ^ The second fact is
still more striking. Although the idea of Election in Jesus Christ
must be regarded as the central theme of Calvin's preaching, in
the hundreds of sermons which Calvin preached he rarely
mentions the doctrine of double predestination; even his com-
mentaries— although not to the same degree — show a similar
unequal emphasis on the doctrines of Election and Predestina-

' Werke, I, pp. 7 ff. and 60 ff.
324

DOUBLE PREDESTINATION

tion.^ The fact remains, however, that there is a danger of
misunderstanding the doctrine of Election, which practically
equates the latter with the doctrine of a "double predestination".
This we have already noted (in the previous chapter) in our
discussion of the three erroneous subordinate conceptions:
causality, a wrong idea of Eternity, and a mistaken view of the
idea of "choice".

(2) The idea of Omnipotence plays a secondary part in this
discussion. But even Calvin, whose mind was not very philo-
sophical, had to utilize, to some extent, the conception of
Omnipotence of the philosophical-theological tradition, that is,
the idea of "potestas absoluta" ^ Since it was already established
that at the end of History there would be a Judgment, a sepa-
ration between those who go into Eternal Life and those who
are given over to eternal destruction — which, indeed, is general
Christian teaching — it was not difficult to take a further step,
and to ascribe this twofold result to the Almighty Will of God,
and thus to deduce a double predestination. For how could any-
thing take place at all which had not been willed by God ? And
if it has already been willed by God, then it has been willed
from all eternity. Calvin does not make Luther's distinction —
which Luther feels to be so important — ^between the "revealed"
and the "hidden" will of God, or if he does think of it, he takes
a quite different view. Hence, from the standpoint of the idea
of Omnipotence, Calvin believed that there was an exact
parallel between the negative and the positive will of God,
between the Omnipotence which achieves salvation, and the
Omnipotence which achieves man's ruin. If the accomplishment
of man's salvation is based upon an eternal Decree, then the
accomplishment of man's destruction is also based upon a
divine decree. This kind of argument fitted in exactly with the
result of the idea of selection: if there is a "numerus electorum" ,
then there is also a "numerus reproborum".

(3) A third motif in the development of Calvin's thought,
which ought not to be under-estimated, is the example of his
revered ecclesiastical leader, Augustine. Augustine was the only
great teacher of the Early Church who gave reliable Biblical
teaching on the subject of Sin and Grace, that is, who was
occupied with the main problem of Reformation theology. He,
too, was the first to combine this doctrine of Grace with that of

' See the excellent Zurich Dissertation of P. Jacobs, Erwahli-ng v. Verant-
wortlichkeit bei Calvin, 1927.

» The fact that in his doctrine of Omnipotence Calvin rejects this idea of the
"potestas absoluia" is no proof to the contrary (cf. above, p. 306).

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

a double predestination. It was not difficult to follow his
example in this respect.

Last on the list of these influences we may name that of
exegesis: for though it is perfectly true that Calvin desired to
be first and foremost a Biblical theologian, it is, on the other
hand, equally evident that no one has any right to read the
doctrine of double predestination into the Bible, and, indeed,
that if we pay proper attention to what the Scriptures say, it is
impossible to deduce this doctrine from the Bible at all. Thus
the Bible can only be regarded as a source for Calvin's doctrine
on this point in this sense: that if one has finally embarked on
the movement of thought which culminates in the doctrine of
a double predestination, it is possible to find passages which
seem, at least, to teach it, and thus could easily be misunder-
stood in this sense; but once this had taken place, this appa-
rently "Scriptural" support gave the doctrine of a double
Decree a weight which no further arguments could remove. If
the Bible teaches double predestination — then what Biblical
theologian would dare not to teach it ?

. . (3)
After all that was said in the previous chapter, and all our
discussion of the doctrine of the Divine Omnipotence in another
passage, our final task is to examine the statements of Scripture
which appear to support the doctrine of Predestination. We
will now anticipate the results of this examination, and give the
reasons for these conclusions in the paragraphs which follow.
Here is the result of this study: The Bible does not contain the
doctrine of double predestination, although in a few isolated
passages it seems to come close to it. The Bible teaches that all
salvation is based upon the eternal Election of God in Jesus
Christ, and that this eternal Election springs wholly and
entirely from God's sovereign freedom. But wherever this
happens, there is no mention of a decree of rejection.'' The
Bible teaches that alongside of the elect there are those who
are not elect, who are "reprobate", and indeed that the former
are the minority and the latter the majority; but in these
passages the point at issue is not eternal election but "separa-
tion" or "selection" in Judgment. ^ Thus the Bible teaches that
there will be a double outcome of world history, salvation and
ruin. Heaven and Hell. But while salvation is explicitly taught
as derived from the eternal Election, the further conclusion is

' Cf . Rom. 8 : 28 ff . ; i ; 2 ; Eph. i : 5 = 4 : 28. ^ Matt. 22 : 14.

326

DOUBLE PREDESTINATION

not drawn that destruction is also based upon a corresponding
decree of doom. To the Elect it is said: "Come, ye blessed of
My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world"; but to the rejected: "Depart from
Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the
devil and his angels. "^ The distinctive element in the Biblical
statement is not the "congruity" but the "incongruity" of the
"right hand and the left hand". The Bible teaches, it is true,
that God is also at work in evil and in sin where men harden
their hearts and betray the Highest; but this "working" is not
ascribed to an eternal decree,^ and the "hardening of heart" —
particularly in the decisive case of Israel — is not conceived as
irrevocable. Israel, which at present is hardened and therefore
rejected, can — and indeed will — still be saved if it does not
remain in a state of disobedience. 3 The Bible teaches that Judas
commits his act of treachery in order "that the scripture should
be fulfilled", 4 but it does not say that this is the result of an
eternal decree. II; teaches that men are children of wrath, 5 in so
far as they do not believe in Christ, and that "the wrath of God
abideth upon them", if they do not turn to Christ ;6 but it does
not teach that this wrath is based upon a divine decree. It
teaches that in one house there are vessels of honour and vessels
of dishonour; but it also teaches that if a man purify himself
"he shall be a vessel unto honour".? In one passage — and here
we come very near to the doctrine of a double predestination —
the Bible speaks of those who find the "chief corner stone" to
be a "stone of stumbling and a rock of offence", "whereunto
also they were appointed". ^ But here, too, there is no sug-
gestion of an eternal decree of rejection, nor even that this
unbelief or disobedience was caused by God ; what the passage
does say is that the "stumbling" against the "rock of offence",
which is the result of their disobedience, the ruin which is caused
by their unbelief, is "appointed" by God as a necessary result.
Even in their unbelief men do not fall out of the sphere of the
Divine Will. Even in their ruin God's will is at work.

The Bible teaches "that the Lord hath made everything for
His own purpose: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil". 9
Here the actual words seem to come rather close to the idea of
a decree of rejection; but the idea itself is simply this: that the

> Matt. 25: 34 and 41. (R.V.) ^ Exod. 4: 21; Isa. 6: 10; Rom. 11: 8.

3 Rom. 11: 23. 4 Acts i: 16. s Eph. 2: 3.

* John 3: 36. 7 Rom. 9: 21; 2 Tim. 2: 21.

8 I Peter 2:8. 9 Prov. 16: 4. (R.V. margin.)

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

godless man, by the very fact that in the day of evil it will
become evident that he is godless, must serve the divine pur-
pose. The writer of the Apocalypse speaks of those "whose
names were not written in the Book of Life";^ but this Book
is the Book of the Judge, even though the Judge knows all
things beforehand. Here, too, there is no idea of a decree of
rejection.

The Ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is usually
regarded as the "locus classicus" of the doctrine of a double
predestination, and for this reason it requires very careful con-
sideration. Hence it is extremely important to show very
clearly the connexion of this chapter with the two which follow.
They do not deal with the salvation and damnation of the
individual, but with the destiny of Israel. Thus the point of
view itself is entirely different from that of the doctrine of
predestination. The "probandunt" is not a "double decree", but,
on the one hand, the validity of the divine promises to Israel,
in spite of the hardening of heart of the empirical contemporary
Jewish people; and, on the other hand, the reason for the
defective development in Israel, namely, from the human
point of view the self -righteousness of Israel, instead of the
recognition of the Grace of Christ ; and, from the point of view
of God, God's all-inclusive plan of redemption, which even the
temporary rejection of Israel must serve.

All this looks very different from the doctrine of a "double
decree" by means of which a "numerus eleciorum" from all
eternity is confronted by a "numerus reprobatorum" . The
"nervus probandi", the main argument, is not the parable of
the potter and the clay, but primarily the freedom of God in
his Election and "hardening", and, secondly, the impossibility
of making any claim on God. This freedom of God is balanced
by the doctrine of righteousness through faith alone. Because
Israel is self-righteous, it loses salvation; but if Israel abandons
its self-righteousness and becomes converted, then it will re-
ceive salvation. When it seems, in the middle of the chapter, as
though Paul will finally argue for a decree of rejection, then —
quite apart from the detailed exegesis which we shall carry out
in a moment — we should reflect that those who are here called
"vessels of wrath", are the same as those who, in Chapter ii,
will be represented as having finally been saved. Thus the fact
that they are now "vessels of wrath" does not prevent them

' Rev. 17: 8. On the other hand, it is said of others that their names are
removed from the Book of Life.

328

DOUBLE PREDESTINATION

from being the "saved" at the end of the ages. So far as the
details of this chapter are concerned, which has so often been
used in support of the doctrine of predestination, the following
needs to be said :

(a) As in the whole context, so also in the example of Jacob
and Esau, in the movement of thought of the Apostle Paul, this
is not an argument in support of a "double decree", but it is an
illustration of the freedom of God in His action in the history
of salvation. When we read: "For the children being not yet
born, neither, having done anything good or bad, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works
but of Him that calleth ..." this does not refer to a double
"decretum" , but to the freedom of the divine election. Here
there is no question of the eternal salvation of Jacob and the
eternal doom of Esau; the point is simply the part which
each plays in the history of redemption. Paul wishes to show
that God chooses the instruments of His redemptive action,
the bearers of th.e history of the Covenant, as He wills. The
theme of this passage is not the doctrine of predestination,
but the sovereign operation of God in History, who has been
pleased to reveal Himself at one particular point in History,
in Israel.

{b) Likewise in the following verses Pharaoh is simply an
historic redemptive instrument in the hand of God, that instru-
ment which, through its "hardening", must serve God's pur-
pose. There is no question here of his salvation or condemnation.
All the argument is concentrated on one point : God has mercy
on whom He will, and hardens whom He will. The point of the
whole is the freedom of grace.

(c) Finally, we come to the critical main passage, verses
19-22, the point in the whole Bible which comes closest to a
doctrine of a double decree — and yet is separated from it by a
great gulf. The parable of the potter and the clay, taken from
Isaiah 28: 16 and Jeremiah 18: 6, expresses the absolute right
of God to dispose of His creature as He chooses. The creature
has no right to claim anything over against God; He may do
with it what He wills. He does not have to account for His
actions to anyone. God is the Lord, and His authority knows
no limits.

The difficult verse is 22: "What if God, willing to show His
wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long-
suffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction : and that He
might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of

329

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

mercy, which He afore prepared unto glory ..." The sentence
breaks off here. The whole phrase is a conditional question: If
God does this, what will you say? The "vessels of wrath"
which are here mentioned as the means of the divine plan of
salvation, are the Jews. The passage does not say that they
have been created as vessels of wrath, still less that from all
eternity they have been destined for this, but that, on account
of their unbelief, they are "fitted unto destruction". ^ Paul never
uses the idea of the "wrath of God" save in the sense of the
divine reaction to human sin and man's refusal to obey. There
is no more reference here to a negative decree, or to a negative
purpose in creation, than there is to a negative ultimate end;
for in Chapter ii it is said of the same Jews that after their
temporary rejection has served the purpose of God, they will
be restored to the Divine favour, as soon as they repent, and
are converted. Paul never forgets for a moment the personal
relation and that conditionalis divinus, that is, the Living
God.

In any case, the "vessels of wrath" mentioned in this passage
are not the "reprobi" of the doctrine of Predestination. Here,
indeed, there is no mention of individuals as individuals at all,
but the whole People of Israel is being discussed, and the point
is not that the "People" as a whole will be lost eternally, but
that now, for the moment, they play a negative part in the
history of salvation, which, in the future, after they have been
converted, will become a positive one. The final issue of the
judgment of wrath will be their salvation. Here, again, we
notice that there is a remarkable "incongruity" between those
"on the left hand" and those "on the right", as in Matthew 25.
The "vessels of wrath" are designated by an impersonal passive,
KaT-qpriaiJidva. els a-TTcoAetav, they are "ripe for destruction".
Thus it is explicitly stated that it is ?iot God who has made
them what they are. The linguistic phrase is deliberately in the
passive, denoting a present condition, and can equally well be
translated "ripe for condemnation". Over against them stand
the "vessels of mercy" whom God "hath afore prepared unto
glory". In the first case no active subject, and no indication of
an act of predetermination; in the second instance, an active
Subject, God, and a clear indication of eternal election. Thus
even in this apparently clearly "predestinarian" passage there
is no suggestion of a double decree! The examination of the
statements of Scripture regarding this doctrine leads, therefore,

I "Ripe and ready to be destroyed." Moffat's Trans. (Tr.)

"double predestination"

to a completely negative result. There is no doctrine of a double
decree in the New Testament, and still less in the Old Testa-
ment.

(4)
The doctrine of the double decree is, however, not only not
supported by the evidence of Scripture, it is also impossible to
equate it with the message of the Bible. It leads to an under-
standing of God and of man which is contrary to the idea of
God and of man as given in revelation. It leads to consequences
which are in absolute and direct opposition to the central state-
ments of the Bible. Of course, the champions of the doctrine of
Predestination have never admitted this, but, on the contrary,
they have taken great pains to evade these conclusions, and to
smooth out the contradiction; but in this speculative effort
which, from their own standpoint, was inevitable, their process
of argument becomes sophistical and contradictory. If God is
the One who, before He created the world, conceived the plan
of creating two kinds of human beings — non pari conditione
creantur omnes, Calvin says explicitly — namely, those who are
destined for eternal life — the minority — and the rest — the
majority — for everlasting destruction, then it is impossible
truly to worship this God as the God of love, even if this be
commanded us a thousand times, and indeed at the cost of the
loss of eternal salvation. Essentially, it is impossible to regard
the will which conceives this double decree as J:he same will
which is represented as Agape in the New Testament. All
Calvin's arguments against these objections come to the same
point in the end : these two conceptions must be kept together
in thought, because both are stated in the Word of God. God is
Love, that is the clear Biblical message; God has conceived the
double decree, that is — according to Calvin's erroneous opinion
— equally clearly, the Biblical message ; thus one must identify
the God of the double decree with the God who is Love. But
when we reveal the error in the second statement, the whole
argument, which demands the impossible, falls to the ground.
The Bible does not urge us to believe that the God whom it
reveals to us as the God of love has created some human beings
for eternal life and the rest for eternal doom. Equally inevitably
the double decree contains a second consequence for the Idea
of God which is in opposition to the Biblical message: God is
then unmistakably "auctor peccati" . Zwingli drew this conclu-

' Institutio, III, 21, 5.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

sion courageously, without "turning a hair", only making the
excuse that the moral standard which is valid for us cannot be
applied to God. This at least can be said, and in itself the idea
is not contradictory. Calvin, on the contrary, is terrified of
this conclusion, and calls it blasphemous. In point of fact, it is
impossible to say of the God whom the Biblical revelation
shows us, that He is the Author of Evil. But Calvin tries in vain
to eliminate this conclusion from his doctrine of predestination.
Here, too, his argument simply ends in saying: "You must not
draw this conclusion!" — an exhortation which cannot be
obeyed by anyone who thinks.

The consequences of the doctrine of predestination are just
as disastrous for the understanding of Man as they are for the
Idea of God. Predestination in the sense of the "double decree"
means unmistakably: All has been fixed from eternity. From all
eternity, before he was created, each individual has been
written down in the one Book or the other. Predestination in the
sense of the double decree is the most ruthless determinism that
can be imagined. Before there was any world at all, before
there was anything like time, causes, things, and creatures, it
was already fixed — not only that there will be these two kinds
of human beings, sinners who wiU be lost and sinners who will
be saved, but also to which of both groups each human being,
whom God will create, belongs. And here, indeed, we are not
concerned with the milder exposition of the Infralapsarian
theory — lapsus est primus homo quia Dominus ita expedire
censueraP — that God does indeed (it is true) see all beforehand,
but that He only wills one thing beforehand, the positive' — no,
eternal destruction is willed by God in exactly the same way as
eternal salvation, and those human beings who are doomed to
destruction have been created by God for this end in exactly
the same way as the others have been destined for salvation.
For every human being who thinks, and does not force his mind
to accept sophistries, it is clear that the net result is that there
can be neither freedom nor responsibility, that decision in the
historical sense is only an illusion, since everything has already
been decided in eternity. Calvin — and Calvin in particular, who
cares so much about moral responsibility — tries to avoid this
conclusion, but all his arguments are logically untenable, and
all end in the postulate : we must hold both ideas together in our
minds, since the Bible teaches both.

Finally, the consequences for soteriology are no less sinister.

' Institutio, III, 23, 8.

DOUBLE PREDESTINATION

If this doctrine be true, what use is it to preach the Gospel and
to call men to repentance ? He who is going to be saved will be
saved in any case, and he who is doomed to destruction will in
any case be lost. The summons to decision which all preaching
contains is merely a trick, because decision is an illusion. All
these absolutely devastating consequences of the doctrine of
predestination for the Christian Faith and for the activity of
the Church must, we feel, have been dimly felt by Calvin and
the other theologians who held these views, but they did not
allow them to obtrude. The fact that they must have been
aware of them seems evident when we reflect that — ^with a few
exceptions — they did not dare to preach this doctrine, nor to
include it in the Catechism. It was "de facto" an artificial theo-
logical theory, an esoteric doctrine for theologians, which they
did not dare to preach to the people as a whole. We can, how-
ever, only explain the fact that these theologians themselves
believed that they were able to evade these conclusions, and
that they did eyade them to the extent that they did not let
them rob them of either their faith in the God of love or of
their belief in human freedom and responsibility, by suggesting
that in their own thought the true Biblical doctrine of Election
and this false and unscriptural doctrine of predestination were
continually being confused with one another. Because, in the
genuine understanding of faith, they knew that Election and
responsibility. Election and the Love of God, not only do not
contradict one another, but that they are one, they were able
to hold firmly to the doctrine of the double decree without
drawing these conclusions from it. The harm caused by this
doctrine was felt less in the sphere of Christian faith and life
than in that of theological reflection, and indeed only in the
comparatively tolerable form of the impossible sophistical
argument. This had to be included out of — so-called — "loyalty"
to the Bible. The fact that men were able to hold the doctrine
of predestination with a good conscience was due to the uncon-
scious confusion of Election and Predestination. Because they
were aware that the doctrine of Election is the heart of the
Bible, but did not perceive that this is very different from the
doctrine of Predestination, the genuine sentiment regarding the
doctrine of Election was transferred to that of Predestination.
But the conflicts which this caused were made to some extent
innocuous by the fact that the clear Biblical teaching prevented
them from drawing the logical conclusions of the doctrine of
Predestination. The logical impossibility of this situation was

333

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

supported by the conviction that in so doing they were standing
on the bedrock of Holy Scripture.

(5)
But the doctrine of double predestination is not the only
misunderstanding which menaces the genuine Biblical doctrine
of Election ; on the other, opposite side, lies the no less dangerous
false doctrine which is equally inconsistent with the Faith
taught in the Scriptures of the aTTOKaTdara.ais rcov TrdvTojv, the
doctrine of the final restoration of all men — the statement : All
have been elect from eternity, therefore all will participate in
eternal life. From the days of Origen onwards this heretical
doctrine appeared in the Church, but from the beginning it was
recognized and condemned as heresy. ^ It could not gain a
footing within the teaching of the Church because it too obvi-
ously contradicted the clear Biblical teaching on Judgment and
the possibility of being lost. The testimony of the Apostles, as
well as the teaching of Jesus Himself, spoke too clearly of the
Last Judgment, of the separation between those who are saved
and those who are lost, and the idea of the Last Judgment was
too firmly anchored in the creed of the Church, and in its
practical activity in teaching and pastoral work, to allow the
danger from this side to become acute. This only happened at
a period when the Biblical foundation of the Church had be-
come precarious as a whole, and an optimistic self-glorifying
picture of man occupied a position which could no longer
tolerate the idea of a Final Divine Judgment. But, as we know
to-day, the doctrine of Universal Salvation may also arise from
other causes, namely, from a mistaken "objectivism" in the
doctrine of Jesus Christ, which lays stress on the words "God so
loved the world", and pays no attention to those which follow,
"that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish . . ." If
the divine revelation of love in the sense of monergism is em-
phasized in such a one-sided way that no room is left for human
decision, then we cannot avoid the conclusion that the universal
will of God for man's salvation — "God our Saviour who willeth
that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the
truth"2 — means the doctrine of universal salvation. The abso-
lute character of the divine offer of grace is emphasized — in
such a one-sided way — at the expense of the conditionalis
divinus — to such an extent that in the end the other side disap-

' See below, pp. 352 ff. ' i Tim. 2: 3-4.

334

"double predestination"

pears altogether ; the result is that the gravity of the element of
decision is entirely ignored.

The Church had good reason to reject the doctrine of univer-
sal salvation, not only on formal "Biblical" grounds, but also
from the point of view of the actual teaching of the Bible. This
does not mean that the final salvation of all men must be
denied as a divine possibility, but only that it cannot be estab-
lished as a positive human doctrine. All that we would urge is
that we should not allow ourselves to be lulled into a false security
by taking the possibility of an incomprehensible, gracious
decision of God for granted; we do not deny that this possi-
bility may exist. The error in the doctrine of universal salva-
tion is not that it leaves the door of divine possibility open, but
that it leaves this door only open, and closes the door on the
other possibility. That which is an incomprehensible divine
possibility is here arrogantly taken for granted by man as a
certainty. This is in absolute opposition both to the Biblical
understanding of God and to the Biblical understanding of
man and of salvation.

[a) Just as it is impossible to combine the idea of the double
decree, in the sense in which Calvin uses it, with the love of
God, so is it impossible to combine the doctrine of universal
salvation with the idea of the Holiness of God. Men will say
arrogantly: "God cannot decide against me, against anyone."
Then perhaps it is not true that "God is not mocked", that
"man must reap what he has sown"? Then it is not true that
the man who will not submit to God must be shattered to
pieces on the rock of God's immovable righteousness? Then,
too, it is not true that the Gospel is a Gospel of deliverance
from absolute and imminent danger — for there is no such
danger? Then the very use of the term "deliverance" is a vast
exaggeration, a sort of bluff, which is only used as a means of
frightening men into repentance and conversion, a threat,
which is not intended seriously. If there is no possibility of
being "lost", there is no rejoicing at being "saved".

Once again : The point at issue is not that we deny the possi-
bility that God can save all men, but that this possibility
implies the impossibility of the opposite. The error in the doc-
trine of Apokatastasis is not the assertion of the positive possi-
bility, but the exclusion of the negative possibility. This
doctrine destroys the dialectical unity of Holiness and Love,
and this is the Biblical idea of God. The Bible allows for both
possibilities; but the negative possibility excludes the decision

335

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

of faith. Faith knows that "nothing can separate us from the
Love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord".^ But faith at
the same time knows that only in Jesus Christ, only in faith,
can this decision be made, and is made, and thus that outside
of faith the other possibility remains open, and in a case where
unbelief is final, must become a reality,

{b) Again, by the doctrine of Apokatastasis , human responsi-
bility becomes an illusion, and indeed not only — as in the
theory of a double predestination — because it is not possible,
but because it is not necessary. For this doctrine excludes,
from the outset, any idea that the danger could be serious.
There are no longer two ways — one that leads to life and one
that leads to death — but only the one way which leads to
salvation, which is certain for all. All ways lead to this end;
thus neither the decision of faith nor the atoning work of
Christ have any final, absolute seriousness. The view which
regards the final salvation of all men as an ultimate Divine
possibility is compatible with a profoundly serious view of life ;
it is only when the other possibility is ruled out that seriousness
is lost. If there is no possibility of being lost, then the danger is
not grave. If the danger is not grave, then salvation is not a
real deliverance. The doctrine of universal salvation robs life of
its genuine seriousness of decision. If there is no negative pos-
sibility, but only a positive final possibility, then all roads lead
to the same goal. Thus it is not necessary to make any effort to
find the right way. Certainly the champions of this doctrine
will not admit this conclusion — but who can prevent those
who are careless and superficial from drawing this conclusion?
We ought not to say that this line of argument is the same as
that followed by Paul in Romans 6, which he rejects: "Shall we
then continue in sin, that grace may abound? "2 For in the
Pauline understanding of faith fear is included in this disastrous
possibility, and preserves faith from frivolity. As the champion
of a double predestination tries in vain to preserve the real
possibility of a decision, just as vainly does the protagonist of
the doctrine of Universal Salvation try to maintain the real
necessity for decision.

(6)
Both errors, the doctrines of the Double Decree and of
Universal Salvation, equally eliminate the vital tension, based
on the dialectic of God's Holiness and Love, by means of a

• Rom. 8: 39. » Rom. 6: i.

DOUBLE PREDESTINATION

monistic schema. Both try to evade the truth of the freedom of
God, which is intolerable to logical thought, by establishing a
settled doctrine : on the one side, in a dark, pessimistic manner,
and on the other side cheerfully and optimistically. Both seek
a solution which will satisfy the mind. Logically satisfying,
although terrible for the heart, is the doctrine of the double
decree. Logically satisfying, although devastating for the
conscience, is the doctrine of the certain salvation of all men.
The Biblical doctrine of Election knows neither the one nor the
other of these logical rational solutions. It teaches the doctrine
of the Holy and Merciful God, who in Jesus Christ has chosen
all who believe in Him from all eternity, but who rejects those
who refuse this obedience of faith.

The right understanding of Election is, therefore, only
possible where that dialectical relation of Holiness and Mercy
is rightly understood, which is the fundamental characteristic
in the Biblical Idea of God, and also corresponds — in the
doctrine of the Trinity — to the truth that the Father and the
Son are One, and yet not one. The Holiness of God is identical
with the Love of God — in Jesus Christ, in faith. What God is in
Himself is identical with that which He is for us — in Jesus
Christ, in faith. God's Decree is the decree of Election — in
Jesus Christ, in faith. But outside of Jesus Christ, outside of
faith, God's Holiness is not the same as His Love, but there it is
His wrath; there what God is "in Himself" is not the same as
that which He is "for us", there it is the unfathomable, impene-
trable mystery of the "nuda majestas" ; there is no election, but
rejection, judgment, condemnation, but not an eternal decree.
For there is there indeed no word, no light, no life. The Light,
the Word, and the Life are where the Son is, and in the Son
alone can we perceive a divine decree.

This dialectic is in harmony with the a-symmetry of the
Biblical statements. God's will of wrath is not in the same way
"His" will as His will of Love; His ruling in wrath is His
"strange", not His "own" work. God is never called "Wrath",
it is never said of God that He is "wrath", as it is said that He
is Love. Hence it is never said of Him that from eternity He
has wiUed the doom of some, whereas it is constantly asserted
that from aU eternity He has chosen His own. This incongruity
of the "left" and of the "right" hand, is, in contrast to that
"congruous", rational, "single-track" way of thinking, the
characteristic of the freedom of God, which includes within

337

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

itself the freedom of decision for man, and is the basis of his
freedom of decision. Only because it is so, namely, logically so
unsatisfying, is there room for the freedom of decision, for the
true responsibility of faith. We have to choose between that
which is logically satisfying and leaves no room for decision,
and that which is logically unsatisfying, but leaves room for
decision. Or rather, it is not that we "have the choice", but
that in faith "we have decided", and since we have decided in
faith, we know that from all eternity the decision has been
made for us. But if we have decided in faith, then we know,
too, that outside of this decision of faith there are only two
non-dialectical, "single-track", rational possibilities, the pessi-
mistic and the optimistic, which are excluded by the act of
faith itself.

The doctrine of Election is therefore not intelligible in
theory, but only in the decision of faith, not as a doctrine —
"about", but only as an address to the "Thou", as the Word of
God, which in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, addresses
us in such a way that we ought to believe, we are able to beheve,
and we must believe. As soon as that which is known in faith
becomes petrified into an objective impersonal doctrine, it
either becomes unintelligible or it remains one of those only
too intelligible possibilities: double predestination or universal
salvation. This, too, helps us to understand how it is that when
the Bible approaches one alternative or the other, at one
moment it seems to teach the double decree, the divinely willed
particularism of salvation, and at another, the doctrine of
Apokatastasis, that of sure and certain salvation for everyone,
without taking faith into account — yet, in point of fact, it
never actually commits itself to either view.

Thus the Christian doctrine of the will of God is in entire
harmony with the Christian doctrine of the Divine Nature.
The paradox of faith of the Holiness and the Love of God which
are identical in Christ, but are contradictory, apart from Him,
corresponds to the paradox of faith that God in Christ has
elected all who believe in Him, but not those who refuse to
give Him the obedience of faith. This paradox of faith, again,
is in accord with the character of faith itself, decision which is
Faith or Unbelief is a matter of life or death, heaven or hell, of
real deliverance, or the real possibility of being lost. The
Christian revelation, with its demand for obedience, confronts
us with this summons to decision; indeed, it is only in the
Christian revelation that we see that this "life or death"

338

DOUBLE PREDESTINATION

decision has to be made; it is only from the standpoint of
revelation that human existence acquires this infinite tension.
Outside of faith man knows nothing of this, but he lives, taking
things very much for granted, whether he is an optimist or a
pessimist, either in Utopian self-deception or in despairing
resignation. Faith alone knows the abyss from which Christ
saves.

339

APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 22 AND 23
(l) ON THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION

Before Augustine, there was no doctrine of Predestination. In
a world like that of declining antiquity, dominated by the idea
of Fate, it was far more important to stress the freedom and
responsibility of man than the fact that he is determined. This
concern led the Early Church Fathers to the other extreme
from that of the doctrine of predestination: to the doctrine of
Free Will, which they developed in connexion with the Stoic
idea of dvre^ovmov as the presupposition of moral responsi-
bility.

Augustine's great achievement was the rediscovery of the
Biblical "sola gratia"; this was why he meant so much to the
Reformers. Augustine was, however, also responsible for con-
necting the doctrine of Election (against the teaching of Scrip-
ture) with the psychological-anthropological problem of Free-
dom. From the time that Augustine came decidedly under the
influence of Pauline thought, the idea of Grace predominated in
his theology. As a genuine disciple of the great Apostle, he saw
how man was hopelessly entangled in the net of sin, and he
understood the Gospel message more and more as the doctrine
that God, by His Grace, sets man free from this bondage to sin.
In all this he remained true to the genuinely Christian New
Testament line of thought. It is true that here there is a trace
of a movement in the direction of anthropology, which comes
out in the Augustinian concept of Grace: Augustine is not so
much concerned about the gracious action of God in Jesus Christ,
as he is in the transformation of man, who was in bondage to sin,
into a free man, by the working of Grace. The infusio caritatis,
not the remissio peccatorum, accepted in faith, is his main idea;
he did not understand that the justification of the sinner does
not follow the inpouring of love, but precedes it.

From this transformation which takes place in man he pro-
ceeds to argue further, in terms of causality. If this transforma-
tion is really due to Grace alone, then this divine factor, which
alone counts, must be traced back to its eternal origin. This
origin is the divine choice in grace. Then Election is no more
the state of "being-elect-in-Christ" than faith is the state of
"being-justified-in-Christ". Rather, the psychological separa-
tion of grace from Christ {gratia infusa) corresponds to the

340

APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 22 AND 23

separation of Election from Christ. Election is that pre-temporal
act of God to which the causal consideration of the divine work
of grace in the human soul leads. Election is wholly severed
from the revelation in Christ, it is the metaphysical postulate
which results from the causal consideration of the experience of
Grace.

The great gulf, in Augustine's thought, between faith in
Christ and Election, comes out very clearly in the fact that —
for Augustine — "faith" does not necessarily imply the certainty
of Salvation and Election : Quis enim ex multitudine fidelium
quadiu in hac mortalitate vivitur, in numero praedestinatorum se
esse praesumat? {0pp. X, 999). Thus Election is not that which
one accepts in Christ, but it is a metaphysical "X", to which
the causal retrospective conclusion — or, to put it more exactly:
the causal consideration of Grace in the abstract — leads. This
severance of Election from Faith in Christ now means that
Election is more narrowly defined as the selection of a "numerus
praedestinatorum' [ivom the "massa perditionis" . The misunder-
standing of the Scripture passage. Matt. 22 : 14, which contrasts
the great number of those who are "called" with the small
number of those who are "chosen", seemed to provide a Scrip-
tural basis for this view. Actually, this passage does not refer
to the subject of eternal election at all, but merely to the sepa-
ration of one group from another at the Judgment.

Otherwise Augustine does not yet develop the idea of pre-
destination to its most ruthless conclusion of a gemina praedes-
tinatio. Rather, in his thought we can still detect a trace of the
unequal emphasis of the Bible, in that he speaks of a "praedes-
tinatio" to salvation, but not of a "predestination" to destruc-
tion; he only speaks of a "foreknowledge" of rejection and of
the reprobate. This distinction makes it possible for him to
understand predestination in an infralapsarian and not in a
supralapsarian sense: out of those who were affected by the
Fall of Adam God chooses some to be saved ; the rest He leaves
to their self-chosen fate. The first man to pronounce the terrible
phrase " praedestinatio gemina" was a monk named Gottschalk,
in whose writings we already find the expression "pariter",
which Calvin's formula revived. The fight against Gottschalk,
and his champion Ratramnus, shows that the Catholic Church
was still less inclined to accept this extreme idea of Predestina-
tion, since in practice it was moving far more in the direction of
Semi-Pelagianism. On the other hand, Aquinas again adopted
the doctrine of Augustine on this point; he, too, speaks of a

341

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

"certus numerus praedestinatorum" (I, 23, 7); he, too, distin-
guishes between the predestination of the Elect and the fore-
knowledge of the non-elect. In spite of his emphasis on the
"pan-causality" of the Divine Will, Duns Scotus became the
forerunner of the Pelagianism of the Catholic rank and file,
against which the Thomist Bradwardine, and Wyclif, reacted
with a revival of Augustinian conceptions containing a very
strong element of determinism: "omnia quae evenient, evenient de
'necessitate causae primae . . . omnia ilia evenient de voluntate
divina, quae . . . necessaria et inevitahilis in causando est" {De
causa Dei, III, 27).

If we are to estimate Luther's and Calvin's doctrine of Pre-
destination aright we must start from the fact that for them
the problem was regarded entirely from the standpoint of the
question of Augustinianism versus Pelagianism. Thus from the
very outset they adopted the position of the "Either-Or" set
up by Augustine, and thus they accepted that fatal perversion
in the idea of Election, which we have seen to be present in the
thought of Augustine. Once they had embarked on this path,
they followed it to the bitter end, to the "horribile decretum" of
a double predestination. Calvin expressed this view in terms
which exactly convey his meaning : "non pari conditione creantur
omnes, sed aliis vita aeterna, aliis damnatio aeterna praeordi-
natur" {Institutio, III, 21, 5). This formula leaves us in no
doubt whether Calvin really taught this doctrine in the Supra-
lapsarian sense or not. Luther, too, in his work, de servo
arhitrio, argued the strict determinism of Bradwardine through
to the bitter end, with extreme, one might even say brutal, logic.

In Luther's teaching, however, this was not his last word.
This predestinarian determinism was later contradicted by his
new understanding of Election, gained from a fresh insight into
the New Testament. Luther, it is true, never revoked what he
said in de servo arhitrio ; but from 1525 onwards his teaching was
different. He had freed himself from the Augustinian statement
of the problem, and from the causal thinking of Augustine. He
saw that this doctrine of predestination was speculative,
natural theology, and he understood the Biblical idea of Elec-
tion in and through Jesus Christ. Since this change in Luther's
thought is still too little known — in spite of Th. von Harnack's
remarkable evidence {Luthers Theologie, I, pp. 148-190) — and
since we are here concerned with a most important, not to say
fundamental truth, we must now deal with this subject in
greater detail.

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APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 22 AND 23

Whereas before 1525, and especially in de servo arbitrio,
Luther explicitly denies the universalism of the divine will of
salvation, he now emphasizes the truth that God in Christ
offers us, as His sole will, the Gospel of Grace — "nee est praetur
hunc Christum alius Deus aui aliqua Dei voluntas quarenda" —
and to this he adds that whoever speculates upon the will of
God outside of Christ, loses God (40, i, 256). In Christ, the
Crucified, "thou knowest the certain hope of the Mercy of God
towards thee and the whole race of mankind" [ibid., 255). He
now makes an explicit distinction between the universalism of
the promise and the particularism of the way in which the
world will end. "For the Gospel offers to all men, it is true,
forgiveness of sins, and eternal life through Christ ; but not all
men accept the promise of the Gospel . . . but the fact that all
men do not accept Christ is their own fault. . . . "Interim manet
sententia Dei et promissio universalis. . . . For it is the will of
God that Christ should be a communis thesaurus omnium. . . .
But the unbelieving withstand this gracious will of God" {Erl.
ed., 26, 300).

Thus henceforth he makes a distinction between the univer-
salism of the divine will of Salvation and the particularism in the
Judgment, and all the blame for man's ruin is laid at his own
door: "Non culpa verbi quod sanctum est et vitam offert, sed sua
culpa quod hanc salutem quae offertur rejiciunt . . ." (40, 2, 273).

Here, then, in the fact of man's unbelief, the doctrine of
double predestination begins, since here the cause of man's
unbelief is said to be derived from the will of God, and thus
from God's "decree". Here, however, there follows the decisive
turning-point in Luther's thought. From 1525 onwards he warns
his hearers against seeking for a hidden divine decree of this
kind. In exalted tones he exhorts his students, in his Lectures on
Genesis: "Vos igitur qui nunc me auditis, memineritis me hoc
docuisse, non esse inquirendum de praedestinatione Dei absconditi.
Sed ea aquiescendum esse quae revelatur per vocationem et per
ministerium verbi. Ibi enim potes de fide et salute tua certus
esse. ..." The grace of God in Jesus Christ — this is the true
" beneplacitum Dei patris" (43, 463).

Luther perceives that the question of predestination lies out-
side the sphere of Christian revelation and of faith, and that it
is a question of speculative natural theology. It is the scholastic
speculative theology which makes the distinction between a
"voluntas signi" (the revealed will) and the "voluntas beneplati-
citi", the unsearchable divine election or rejection. "No one

343

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

ought to dispute about the "nuda Divinitas" (that is, about the
will of God that has not been revealed), but we ought to flee
from such thoughts as from Hell itself, and as from temptations
of the devil". In the Verbum Dei alone do we have the true
knowledge of the will of God: "aliae cogitationes de voluntate
heneplaciti — occidunt et damnant" . And yet they (the Scholastic
theologians) wrongly call them "dies die voluntas heneplaciti" .
For that which the Gospel shows must be called "voluntas hene-
placiti": "Haec voluntas gratiae recte et proprie vocatur voluntas
heneplaciti. . . . Haec voluntas heneplaciti divini ah aeterno dis-
posita est in Christo revelata." It is the "Primus gradus erroris" ,
says Luther, "when men leave the God Incarnate in order to
follow the Deus nudus". For then there is nothing left save the
Wrath of God. The sight of this "naked God" would inevitably
annihilate us, as we would be burnt up if exposed to the un-
shaded rays of the sun (42: 297 ff.). "If we approach the non-
revealed God, there is no faith, no word, no knowledge; for it is
the Invisible God, whom thou wilt not make visible. Hence
God has forbidden most strictly this idea of God (istam adfecta-
tionem divinitatis) . . . quia scrutator majestatis opprimetur a
gloria . . ." "I, however," says God, "will make known to thee
magnificently my foreknowledge and my predestination, but
not by this way of reason and of carnal science, as thou dost
imagine. But thus will I do it. Out of the non-revealed God will
I become a revealed One, and yet will I remain the same
God. ..." Other ideas, and the ways {viae!) of reason, or of the
flesh, are futile, because God abominates them: "Si vis effugere
desperationem, odium, hlasphemiam Dei, omitte speculationem de
Deo ahscondito et desine frustra contendere ad videndum faciem
Dei. . . ." "If thou dost believe in the revealed God and dost
receive His Word, then soon also the hidden God will reveal
Himself unto thee. ... If thou dost cling with firm faith to the
revealed God . . . then art thou certainly predestined and thou
knowest the hidden God" (43: 460).

In all this Luther has perceived two truths: first of all, that
the traditional doctrine of Predestination, as he himself had
taken it over from Augustine, is speculative theology, and thus
does not create a real knowledge of God, but on the contrary,
drives men to despair — and, secondly, that the true doctrine
of Predestination is simply the knowledge of Election in
Jesus Christ through faith. Thus at this point, as at so many
others, Luther has freed the Gospel from the burden of tradi-
tion which had almost entirely obscured it, and he once more

344

APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 22 AND 23

bases theological truth upon the revelation of God in Jesus
Christ.

With Calvin the situation is different. In so far as he was a
preacher of the Gospel, for him, too, Election in Jesus Christ
through faith was the centre round which all his thinking
circled (cf. the fine Ziirich Dissertation of G. Jacobs, Erwdhlung
und Verantwortlichkeit hei Calvin, 1927). As a dogmatic theo-
logian, however, he was entirely of the same opinion as Augus-
tine, whose doctrine of predestination he intensifies in the
sense of the "gemina praedestinatio" , and the Supralapsarian
equation of fore-knowing and fore-willing. The Biblical inequal-
ity of election and rejection is in his theory entirely removed,
but in practice it appears in the fact that apart from a very few
exceptions, Calvin never preached about the Double Decree,
but only about Election. Calvin fails to perceive the real origin
of this doctrine of double predestination — that is, speculative
natural theology — from the application of the causal concept
to unbelief — ov^ing to the fact that he believes that he has
derived his doctrine entirely from the Holy Scriptures, in that
he combines certain Bible passages with one another — no one
of which really contains this doctrine — in such a way that,
together, they appear to provide the Scriptural proof for the
gemina praedestinatio.

The further development of the doctrine of predestination is
of little interest. No new ideas were introduced into it. Beza
moves one step ahead of Calvin, to this extent, that he does not
place the doctrine of predestination, like his master, in con-
nexion with the doctrine of the Grace of God in Christ, the
doctrine of Justification, but he sets it at the beginning of his
Dogmatics, and develops it in connexion with the doctrine of
Creation, and thus shows unmistakably that it is not derived
from the Christian revelation, but from the process of specu-
lative thought: as we have already seen (pp. 321 ff.) this comes
out very clearly in Zwingli's teaching.

The controversy between the Lutherans, who, following
Luther's later utterances, reject the gemina praedestinatio and
teach the universalism of the Gospel, and the Calvinists — as
well as the controversy between the Supralapsarians and the
Infralapsarians among themselves — is of no interest for us
here. The doctrine of Calvin to some extent culminates in the
Articles of Dordrecht. In the first of these Articles, on the
doctrine of Election, the double decree is formulated in an
Augustinian, that is to say, an Infralapsarian form: "non omnes

345

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

homines esse electos, sed quosdam non electos sive in aeterna dei
electione praeteritos quos scilicet deus ex liberrimo, justissimo . . .
irreprehensibili et immutabili beneplacito decrevit in communi
miseria, in quam se sua culpa praecipitarunt, relinquere" {Milller:
Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche, pp. 845 ff.).
With this statement the doctrine of predestination returns to
its origin, to the doctrine of Augustine, without, however,
actually condemning the more extreme doctrine of Calvin.

In modern times the doctrine of Augustine has found a
champion in Schleiermacher's deterministic speculative theo-
logy— certainly with pantheistic modifications — and has found
its historian in one of the most outstanding of his pupils,
Alexander Schweizer {Die protestantischen Zentraldogmen).
Otherwise in later theology the less biased view of the doctrine
of the New Testament is emphasized. Even the Reformed
theologian Bohl no longer speaks of a double Decree, but of
"the" Decree of God, even when he is contending against the
Lutheran "universalism", which he evidently confuses with the
general theory that "everyone will be saved" [Dogmatik,
p. 289). Only within the strictly Calvinistic theology of Holland
(Kuyper and his school), and in America, has the Calvinistic
doctrine of the Double Decree, mostly, however, in the modified
form of the Articles of Dordrecht, been maintained.

(2) KARL earth's DOCTRINE OF ELECTION

The monumental presentation of the doctrine of Predestina-
tion, and of that of Election in particular, which we find in the
Dogmatics of Karl Barth {Kirchl. Dogm., II, 2, pp. 1-563),
justifies us in making our own critical estimate of it, partly
because it is the most detailed and comprehensive discussion of
the problem in modern theology, but, above all, because here
some entirely new ideas have been introduced into the whole
question.

From the outset I would observe that in the main tendency
there is firm agreement between the doctrine of Barth and that
which is represented in this book : Earth's concern is the same
as ours, namely, the desire to state the doctrine of Election
which is in harmony with revelation and the thought of the
Bible as a whole; hence it is our common concern to reject the
speculative doctrine of Predestination inaugurated by Augus-
tine, the most intense and logical expression of which is Calvin's
doctrine of the Double Decree. Our concern is that Election

346

APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 22 AND 23

should never be mentioned save on the basis of the revelation
in Jesus Christ, that we only know the "divine decree" in Jesus
Christ, and that we have nothing to teach about a "hidden
decree" of God concerning those who do not accept the promise
of Jesus Christ.

However, with this subject Karl Barth has combined a
number of his own ideas, which, because they are completely
new, need to be specially examined.

Barth presents the connexion between Election and Jesus
Christ by the twofold thesis: Jesus Christ is the sole God who
elects ; Jesus Christ is the only Elect Man.

(i) Jesus Christ is the sole God who elects; He is the Subject
of eternal Election. This idea is the necessary consequence of
the doctrine of the Trinity, as Barth understands it. We have
already discussed Barth's doctrine of the Trinity (see above,
pp. 235 ff.) as well as its consequences for the doctrine of
Election (see above, pp. 313). At this point we must deal more
fully with these .statements, and the conclusions to which they
lead.

(ii) The second main article of his doctrine is thus expressed :
Jesus Christ is the only Elect Man. In order to develop this
point further he has to make a third statement: "Jesus the
eternally Elect Man" (p. iii), "the pre-existing God-Man, who,
as such, is the eternal ground of all election" (p. 119).

No special proof is required to show that the Bible contains
no such doctrine, nor that no theory of this kind has ever been
formulated by any theologian. If the eternal pre-existence of
the God-Man were a fact, then the Incarnation would no
longer be an Event at all ; no longer would it be the great miracle
of Christmas. In the New Testament the new element is the
fact that the eternal Son of God became Man, and that hence-
forth through His Resurrection and Ascension, in Him humanity
has received a share in the heavenly glory; yet in this view of
Barth's, all this is now anticipated, as it were, torn out of the
sphere of history, and set within the pre-temporal sphere, in
the pre-existence of the Logos. The results of this new truth
would be extraordinary ; fortunately Barth does not attempt to
deduce them. The idea of the pre-existent Divine Humanity is
an ad hoc artificial theory of the theological thinker, who can
only carry through his argument that the Man Jesus is the
Only Elect Human being by means of this theory.

(iii) Here we cannot go any further into Barth's remarks
about the doctrine of Predestination in general; some are very

347

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

valuable, others are confusing. Anyone who has once under-
stood that Earth's aim is the exact opposite of Calvin's doctrine
of the Double Decree, will find it very strange that Barth con-
tinually constitutes himself the champion of Calvin's doctrine,
as against the Lutheran view, and that he even defends the
more extreme Supralapsarian view against the milder doctrine
of the Infralapsarians. One cannot escape the impression that
Barth is playing with fanciful ideas in theology when he says
(of Jesus Christ): "from the very outset, and in Himself, He is
the double predestination" (p. 170). But it sounds not merely
strange, but horrible, when he says that, on the basis of the
divine decree, "the only person who is really 'rejected' is His
own Son" (p. 350). This view is the inevitable inference from
his first statement. But what does this statement, "that Jesus
is the only really rejected man" mean for the situation of
Man? Evidently this, that there is no such thing as being
"lost", that there is no possibility of condemnation, and thus
that there is no final Divine Judgment. Karl Barth has been
charged with teaching Universalism. When he denies this he is
not altogether wrong. He knows too much about the not parti-
cularly illustrious theologians who have taught this doctrine of
Apokatastasis in Christian history to be willing to allow himself
to be numbered among them. "The Church ought not to preach
Apokatastasis" (p. 529). Thus Barth's doctrine is not that of
Origen and his followers.

(iv) Rather, Barth goes much further. For none of them ever
dared to maintain that through Jesus Christ, all, believers and
unbelievers, are saved from the wrath of God and participate in
redemption through Jesus Christ. But that is what Karl Barth
teaches; for Jesus Christ is, as the only Elect, so also the only
Reprobate man. Thus, since Jesus Christ appeared, and through
Him, there are no longer any who are rejected. Not only for
those who are "in Him" through faith, but for all men, Hell has
been blotted out, condemnation and judgment eliminated.
This is not a deduction which / have drawn from Barth's state-
ment, but it is his own. Since Jesus Christ has taken the con-
demnation of sin upon Himself "rejection cannot again become
the portion of man" (p. 182). "He cannot undo the decision
made by God in eternity ... he cannot create any fact which
takes away the Divine choice" (p. 348). The condemnation,
therefore, because Jesus Christ has anticipated it for all men,
will not affect any godless person. The godless may do what they
can — there is one thing they will not reach: "the position and

348

APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 22 AND 23

the lot of the rejected, after which — since they reject God — in
their foohshness they stretch out their hands, but, certainly,
they will not reach it" (p. 351). The godless man is also one of
the Elect; only he does not know it, and does not yet live in
accordance with this truth. But Jesus has "destroyed the
terror which menaced him" (p. 353). "They may, it is true,
bring shame upon the gracious divine choice; but they cannot
overthrow it, and they cannot undo it" (p. 385). "If the proper
object of His love be none save Him alone (Christ), then apart
from Him can none be consumed by the heat of the wrath of
God" (p. 391). "Outside of Jesus Christ there are no rejected
ones" (p. 389). "Even the rejected stand in this light of Elec-
tion" (p. 552).

There is no doubt that many people at the present time will
be glad to hear such a doctrine, and will rejoice that at last a
theologian has dared to throw on the scrap-heap the idea of a
final divine Judgment, and the doctrine that a man may be
"lost". But ther^ is one point which even they cannot gainsay:
that in so doing Karl Barth is in absolute opposition, not only
to the whole ecclesiastical tradition, but — and this alone is the
final objection to it — to the clear teaching of the New Testa-
ment. How can we eliminate the proclamation of a divine final
Judgment from the Parables of our Lord, from the teaching of
the Apostles — of John as well as of Paul, and of the writer to
the Hebrews as well as of the Epistles of Peter and the book of
Revelation — without entirely destroying their meaning? What
the Bible says about deliverance from condemnation and
Judgment is this, that "there is no condemnation to them who
are in Christ Jesus" , that Jesus Christ saves believers from the
coming judgment of wrath, that through His rescuing love in
Jesus "all who believe in Him shall not perish", that the
foolishness of the Cross "is the power of God unto us who are
being saved", but to those who are lost it is "folly", that the
newly granted divine righteousness is "for all who believe",
and that Jesus Christ makes him righteous who "has faith in
Christ" ; hence that there are two Ways: the broad way "which
leads to destruction" — "and many there be that find it" — and
the narrow way which leads to Life, and "few there be that find
it". How, then, is it possible for Barth to arrive at such a
fundamental perversion of the Christian message of Salvation ?

(v) The answer to this question lies in an element peculiar to
his teaching, which has always been characteristic, and per-
meates his teaching as a whole: namely, its "objectivism", that

349

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

is, the forcible severance of revelation and faith, or rather —
since Barth also naturally wishes to make a basis for faith —
the view that, in comparison with revelation, with the objective
Word of God, the subjective element, faith, is not on the same
level, but is on a much lower plane.

Whereas in the message of the New Testament, Christ and
faith, participation in salvation in Christ and faith. Justifica-
tion and faith, absolutely belong together, and are on exactly
the same level, so that we may say: "Where there is no faith,
there Christ is not; where there is no faith, there, too, there is
no salvation in Christ," Barth does not admit that this correla-
tion exists. Thus he says explicitly: "If, however, the nature of
faith consists in the fact . . . that man is wakened by the grace
of God and is born again as a new subject, then, for that very
reason, it is not possible to place him absolutely over against
one who, different from himself, does not make real and visible
the attitude of faith, its form, so that we regard the former, in
contrast to the latter, as 'elect', and the other, conversely, as
'rejected'. If a person, as a member of the Elect, is that new
subject, then as such (and only in Jesus Christ is this possible)
to a certain extent he is raised above himself in his best, and
above the other in his worst, behaviour. Thus, seen from
thence, the contrast between them becomes a relative contrast
. . . How could the Grace of God mean His absolute favour for
the one, and His absolute disfavour for the other?" (p. 360).
The believer in particular cannot possibly recognize, in the
unbelief of others, an ultimate given fact" {ibid.).

Once again we must say: It may be that this "objectivism",
this "relativization" of faith, may seem illuminating to many,
and may evoke their enthusiastic agreement. But there is one
thing that even they cannot gainsay : that in so doing they are
in clear opposition to the teaching of the New Testament,
where countless passages repeat the truth thus expressed in
John 3: 36: "He that belie veth on the Son hath eternal life;
but He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the
wrath of God abideth upon him."

(vi) Augustine deduced his doctrine of double predestination
from the fact — which he felt sure was proved by the evidence
of Scripture — that there will be two kinds of persons at the
Judgment — those who will be saved and those who will be
condemned; from this he looked back to the divine causality,
and then drew this conclusion. It was a speculation: Natural
Theology on the basis of a statement which had a Biblical core.

350

APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 22 AND 23

Karl Barth takes the opposite line. From the fact that —
according to the teaching of Scripture — Jesus Christ is the
divine offer of salvation for all, he concludes that in consequence
all are saved; this, too, is Natural Theology on the basis of a
statement which has a Biblical core. In assigning condemnation
to an eternal decree Augustine leaves the ground of the Biblical
revelation, in order to draw a logical conclusion which seems to
him illuminating. Karl Barth, in his transference of the salva-
tion offered to faith to unbelievers, leaves the ground of the
Biblical revelation, in order to draw a logical conclusion which
to him seems illuminating. What, however, is the result ?

(vii) First of all, the result is that the real decision only takes
place in the objective sphere, and not in the subjective sphere.
Thus : the decision has been made in Jesus Christ — for all men.
Whether they know it or not, believe it or not, is not so impor-
tant. The main point is that they are saved. They are like
people who seem to be perishing in a stormy sea. But in reality
they are not in a sea where one can drown, but in shallow
water, where it is impossible to drown. Only they do not know
it. Hence the transition from unbelief to faith is not the tran-
sition from "being-lost" to "being-saved". This turning-point
does not exist, since it is no longer possible to be lost. But if we
look at this view more closely, we see also that the turning-
point in the historical Event is no real turning-point at all ; for
Election means that everything has already taken place in the
sphere of pre-existence. In actual fact : the turning-point in the
historical event absolutely depends upon whether the un-
believer also experiences a change of mind and heart which
leads him to faith. For it was for the sake of this "turning" that
Christ became Man and died on the Cross. If the decision of
faith is not deadly serious, then salvation through Jesus Christ
is not deadly serious either; everything has already been
decided beforehand. Thus Karl Barth, far more decidedly than
any other champion of the doctrine of Apokatastasis , finally
reaches the exactly opposite pole from the doctrine of double
predestination. But in spite of the contrast, there is also an
affinity between the two : in both cases everything has already
been decided beforehand, and there remains no room for man
to make a real decision. In the older doctrine everything has
already been decided in anticipation in the sense of a terrible
duality: eternal destiny of salvation for some, eternal destiny
of doom for the rest. In this latest doctrine everything is
decided in the sense of an encouraging unity : eternal destiny to

351

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

salvation for unbelievers as well as for believers, the impossi-
bility of anyone ever being lost.

From the standpoint of Earth's doctrine we cannot see what
can be brought against this final conclusion. But we cannot see,
either, how he could accept it. It is therefore definitely to be
expected that in this matter he has not yet said his last word.

(3) ON THE DOCTRINE OF APOKATASTASIS

The expression which has become the "terminus technicus"
to describe a doctrine which the Church as a whole has recog-
nized as a heresy, comes from Acts 3 : 21. But in this passage the
reference is not to the salvation of all men, but to the "restora-
tion of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of His holy
prophets, which have been since the world began". The Bible
does not speak of universal salvation, but, on the contrary, of
judgment and of a twofold destiny: salvation and doom. Then,
too, one of the first protagonists of the doctrine of the "restora-
tion of all" was a theologian who, in spite of his high reputation
in the life of the Church, had several of his views condemned
later on: Origen. Even the wicked, says Origen, after this
earthly life — some sooner some later — "according to their
merit, and the endurance of heavy or light punishment, after
that they have been restored by this severe method of education,
and after they have gone forward from stage to stage and
reached a better condition, will finally "enter into that which is
eternal and invisible" {De pHnc, I, 6, 3). Thus in his thought
the doctrine of Apokatastasis is evidently connected with his
educational idea of development, which is itself again based on
his Platonist anthropology. The second theologian who sup-
ported this view was the equally strongly Platonist pupil of
Origen, Gregory of Nyssa [Orat. catech., 8: 35). Later on the
same view was held by Duns Scotus and the Syrian Pantheists
of the sixth century (cf. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, II, 113).
Along with other heretical ideas of Origen this doctrine was
condemned under Justinian at the Synod of Constantinople in
the year 543. From that time until the period of the Reforma-
tion no serious thinker argued in favour of this view; then the
Anabaptists, Denk and Hut, took it up, while the Augustana,
in the 17th Article, spoke sharply against the "Anabaptists who
teach that the Devil and men who are damned will not have to
suffer eternal pain and torment". During the Enlightenment
and later there was much sympathy for this doctrine among

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APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS 22 AND 23

"enlightened" thinkers, as well as among Pietists. But the only-
important theologian with a Biblical outlook who adopted it
was F. Ch. Otinger. Bengel was wiser, who never taught it, but
of whom tradition reports that he once said: "He who has
some insight into the doctrine of Apokatastasis , and talks about
it, is 'talking out of school'!" Among the defenders of the
doctrine we naturally find (in accordance with his monistic
type of thought) — Schleiermacher [Ueher die Lehre von der
Erwahlung) ; at least he presents it as an hypothesis — it has
as much right as the other doctrine — since his eschatological
agnosticism prevented him from holding a definite doctrine.

This genealogy gives food for thought. Certainly, it is difficult
for us to conceive that alongside of those who are saved in
Christ — to whom every believer thinks he belongs — there must
be others who are shut out from the Presence of God for all
eternity, and in hopeless misery must eternally live a life which
is worse than death. But who can say that this is the alterna-
tive of the doctrine of Apokatastasis ? No doctrine taught in the
Bible, least of all that of salvation in Christ, is given to us in
order that we should think out what is prepared for those wha
do not accept this salvation. The Word of Christ is for us the
word of decision, which, so far as we believe, gives us salvation,
and, precisely because it summons us to this decision, forbids
us to believe in a deliverance which awaits us, or anyone else^
outside the sphere of faith. Just as we ought to know that God
alone in Jesus Christ is the God of Grace, and outside of Jesus
Christ the God of Wrath, so ought we to know that He is only
gracious to him who believes, but that He is not so to him who
is outside the sphere of faith. But this cannot be for us an
object of theoretical doctrine or even of imaginary ideas. This
is said in order that we may believe, and it is for each of us to
tell others as we have heard it, in order that they, too, may
come to believe. This is our business, but nothing else. We must
absolutely resist the inclination to draw "logical conclusions",
since they only lead to one of two errors : either to the doctrine
of the double decree or to the doctrine of universal salvation,
each of which removes the reality of the decision of faith. Only
the renunciation of the logically satisfying theory creates room
for true decision; but the Gospel is the Word which confronts
us with the summons to decision.

353

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Absolute, Idea of the, 142 ff., 242 ff.,

266, 289, 322
Actus purus, 142 ff.
Agape —

Categorical Imperative and, 197 ff.

Love of God and, 185

Love of one's Neighbour and, 195 ff.

History of the Term, 200 ff.

Meaning of, 197

Trinity and; 228 ff.
Anabaptists, 352
Analogia Entis, 175 ff.
Antioch, School of, 89
Apokatastasis , doctrine of, 334 ff.,

352 ff.
Apologetics, 6, 98 ff.
Apologists, 91, 241, 243
Aseity, Idea of, 142 ff.
Attributes of God {see God, Divine
Attributes)

Bible-
Authority of, 44 ff., 107 ff.
Luther's Views on, 110 ff.
Reformation "Principle of Scrip-
ture," 106

Categorical Imperative, 197 ff.
Confessions of Faith —

Augsburg Confession, 55, 56, 106

Authority of, 52 ff.

Conf. Gallicana, 106

Second Helvetic Confession, 55, 56,
106
Constantine, Donation of, 244
Constantinople, Synod of, 352
Creeds —

Formation of, 54 ff.

Athanasian Creed, 56, 222

Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed,
56

Nicene Creed, 105, 222

Doctrine —

Its Norm, 43 ff.

Danger of over-intellectualism, 40 ff.

Relation of Faith and, 41

Witness and, 36 ff.
Dogma —

Dangers of, 53 ff.

Definition of, 103 ff.

Formation of, 50 ff., 103 ff.

Limited and Provisional Authority
of, 53. 58 ff.

Reformation Theology and, 53

Dogmatics — -
Basis of, 80, 84
Character of, 76, 78 ff.
Dangers of, 84, 85
History of, 91
Limitations of, 85
Necessity for, 3, 9 ff.
Need for Contemporary Expression

of, 68, 71, 83 ff.
Objections to, 6 ff.
Purpose of, 11-13, 64 ff.
Revival of, 93

Service rendered by, 65, 82 ff.
Sources of —

(a) Biblical exegesis, lo-ii

(b) Catechetical instruction,

lO-II

as a Science, 60 ff.

Science and Religion and, 96 ff.

Theology and, 89-91
Donatists, 94
Dordrecht, Articles of, 345 ff.

Election —

Doctrine of, 164, 234, 303 ff.

Erroneous ideas of, 315 ff.

N.T. doctrine of, 309 ff., 337 ff.

Responsibility and, 315 ff.
Enlightenment —

Moral Law and the, 197 ff.

Philosophy of the, 99 ff.
Eristics, Apologetics and, 3, 98 ff.
Eros, Conception of, 185 ff.
Eucharist, Presence of Christ in the,

298 ff.
Existence of God, Proofs for, 149 ff.

Gnosticism, 94

GOD: Attributes of, 191 ff.

Doctrine of the, 241 ff., 293 ff.

Beauty, 288 ff.

Eternity, 266 ff.

Faithfulness, 271 ff.

Immutability, 269 ff., 294

Omnipotence, 248 ff., 294 ff.

Omnipresence, 256 ff., 298

Omniscience, 261 ff., 299

Perfection, 288 ff.

Righteousness, 275 ff., 300 ff.

Simplicity, 293

Wisdom, 282 ff.

355

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

GOD: His Nature —

Biblical View of, i6o ff., 229 ff.
as Creator, 193

as Deus absconditus, 168, 170 ff.
as Deus nudus, 171 ff.
as Deus revelatus, 168
as Deus velatus, 172
Glory of, 160, 285 ff.
Holiness of, 157 ff.
Majesty of, 171
Mystery of, 117-118, 171
Mysterium Tremendum, 157, 165
Philosophical Idea of, 151
Sovereignty of, 137 ff., 148
Transcendence of, 175 ff.
Wrath of, i6r ff., 169 ff., 230 ff.
Name of God —

in the Bible, in theology, 128 ff.

Luther's teaching on, 130 ff.

Significance of, 119 ff.
"Names of God," Dionysius and,

130

Ideas, Plato's Theory of, 299, 304
Incarnation, 219 ff.

Logos, Doctrine of, 26, 63, 224 ff.,
307 ff.

Manichaeans, 94
Monarchianisnt —

Dynamic, 221

Modalism, 221

Neo-platonism, 89, 245, 248, 266,
293 ff., 322

Pan-entheism, 175
Pelagians, 94
Pelagianism, 342
Positivism, 180
Predestination —

Biblical view of, 326 ff.

Creation and, 306 ff.

Doctrine of, 303 ff., 321 ff.

"Double Decree" theory and, 234,

315. 331 ff-
Free Will and, 306
History of Doctrine of, 340 ft.
View of Augustine, 340 ff.
View of Barth (K.), 346 ft'.
View of Calvin, 323 ft., 345 ff.
View of Luther, 342 ff.
View of Schleiermacher, 346 ff.
View of Zwingli, 321 ff.
Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, 244

Revelation —
Doctrine and, 14
Holy Spirit and, 29 ff.
Imago Dei and, 20-21
Nature of, 15 ff.

New Testament and, 15 ff., 23 ff.
Old Testament and, 16, 22-23

Sabellians, 224, 225
Scholastic theologians, 92, 94, 153
Science and Religion, 66
Stoicism, 89, 153, 203
Synergism, 315

Theology —

Dialectical, 93

Historical, 90

Medieval, 142 ff.

Missionary, loi ff.

Natural {see Theologia Naturalis)

Practical, 90

Scholastic, 244

Systematic, 90
Theologia archetypa, 89
Theologia dogmatica, 90
Theologia ectypa, 89
Theologia Naturalis, 89, 132 ff., 301
Theologia Revelata, 89
Time —

Problem of, 317 ff.

Relation of God to, 267 ff.
Tradition, Tridentine Principle of, 108
Trent, Council of, 94
Trinity, Doctrine of, 199, 205 ff., 222,

235, 238 ff.
Trinitarian doctrine — -

Agape and, 228

Barth's View of, 235 ff.

Christology and, 209 ff., 224 ff.

Divine Unity and, 220 ff.

Holy Spirit and, 214 ff.

Mystery of God and, 227

Nature of God and, 217 ff.

New Testament and, 206 ff.

Relation of the Father and the
Son, 229 ff.

Universalism, 234, 315, 336

Vatican, doctrinal authority of, 52
Verbal Inspiration, doctrine of, 28,
34, 45, 109, III, 198

356

INDEX OF NAMES

Abelard, 94

Alsted, 95

Anselm, 142, 289, 295, 299, 301

Aquinas, St. Thomas, 95, 96, 130,

249 ff., 297, 299, 300, 341 £f.
Arius, 221 [n. i), 238 ff.
Arnobius, 241
Aristotle, 89, 136, 152, 201
Athanasius, 94, 129, 223, 224, 243
Augustine, 65, 67, 71, 91, 94 fif., 129, 130,

131, 154, 201, 234 {n. 3), 239, 241,

244. 247, 249, 262, 295, 300, 325 ff.,

340 ff., 350
Aulen, 93

Baier, 203

Earth, Karl, vi, 15 (w. 2;, 54 (n. i),
62 (n. 1), 64 {n. i), 69, 93, 95, loi,
113, 131, 135, 145 (n. 2), 167 {n. 2),
175, 176 {n. i), 177 (n. i), 204, 234
(n. i), 235 ff., 246 {n. i), 247 (w. i),
294, 299 ff., 346 ff.

Bartmann, 105

Baur, 153

Bavinck, 93

Bengel, 353

Berengar, 94

Bernard, Saint, 94

Beza, 345

Biedermann, 92, 139, 297

Billing, 93

Blanke, 168 {n. i), 171 {n. 9), 256
{n. I)

Bohl, 346

Bonaventura, 202

Bradwardine, 342

Buddaeus, 90

BuUinger, 19, 323

Bultmann, R., 69, 72 {n. i), 195 (n. 3)

Burnier, E., 5 (n. 2), 77 (n. i)

Calvin, 9, 31,68, 71, 81, 82, 92, 95, iii,

131, 203, 283 (n. i), 296 ff., 321 ff.,

342, 345 ff.
Chemnitz, 94, 131
Cherbury, Herbert of, 180
Chrysippus, 152
Cicero, 104, 153
Clement of Alexandria, 95, 153, 244,

245 (n. i). 295
Comte, A., 180
Constantine, 179
Cremer, 96, 128, 154, 294, 297
CuUmann, 214 {n. 9), 233 {n. 6), 267

[n. 4)

Cyril of Alexandria, 293, 298
Cyril of Jerusalem, 91, 95

Damascus, John of, 91

Delitzsch, 288 {n. i)

Denk, 352

Denzinger, 105, 108

Diestel, 301 ff.

Dionysius the "Areopagite," 130, 154,

202, 244 ff., 248 ff., 293, 294 ff.
Dorner, 91

Eichrodt, 23 (n. i), 121 (n. i), 137

(n. 4), 253 (n. i)
Epictetus, 153, 200, 203
Erasmus, 249, 316, 321
Erigena, John Scotus, 91, 244
Eusebius, 95

Fichte, 143, 147 {n. i)
Forsyth, P. T., 92
Frank, 91, 92

Gass, 91

Gerhard, J., iii, 112, 293, 294, 301

Gieseler, 295

Gilson, E., 151

Goethe, 117

Gottschalk, 341

Gregory Nazianzen, 129, 244, 295

Gregory of Nyssa, 95. 244, 295, 352

Grether, 22 (n. 2), 119 (n. 3), 121

{n. i), 123 {n. i), 129
Grisebach, E., 7 (n. 2)
Gunkel, H., 37 {n. 2)

Haas, H., 200

Hamann, 8, 99

Harnack, Adolf, 352

Harnack, Theodosius, 168, 342

Hausheer, J., 288 {n. 3)

Hebbel, 163

Hegel, 72, 100, 284

Heidegger, 72 (n. i), 293

Heim, Karl, 77 {n. 1)

Heppe, 203, 319

Herrmann, W., 53 {n. 1)

Hilary, 129

Hinneburg, P., 92 (n. i)

Hippolytus, 94

Hofmann, J. C. K. von, 79 {n. i), 92

Hollaz, 112, 245 {n. 2)

Hosea, 138, 160 {n. 3), 164 (w. i), 201

Husserl, 98

Hut, 352

357

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Hutten, K., 200
Hiitter, L., 106, 11 1

Ignatius, 224

Irenaeus, 67, 94, 108, 201, 224, 243

Jacobs, P., 325 (w. i), 345
Jacobi, H., 154
Josephus, 36. 104
Journel, R. de, 129, 293
Justinian, 352

Justin Martyr, 107, 153, 241 {n. i and
n. 3)

Kahler, 92, 96, loi, 112, 113, 154, 204

Kant, 72, 151, 198 {n. i)

Kattenbusch, 168 {n. i)

Keeker mann, 95

Kepler, 282

Kierkegaard, 8, 33, 35, 35 (w. i), 100,

103, 125 {n. i)
Kittel, G., 158
Krause, K. H., 175
Kiimmel, 21b (n. 3)
Kuyper, 92, 346

Lanfranc, 94

Leeuw, G.v.d., 157 (n. 3)

Lessing, 179

Locke, John, 180

Lombard, Peter, 91 ff.

Loofs, 104, 105, 108, 221 {n. i), 224
{n. I)

Lotze, 72, 175

Luthardt, 234 («. 2)

Luther, 18 {n. i), 32 («. 2), 34, 45, 47,
52, 67, 71, 82, 93, 94, 106, 109 ff.,
130, 131, 168, 169, 170 ff., 178
(n. i), 185 (n. 3), 202 ff., 249, 255,
256 {n. i), 296, 298, 301, 316, 321,
342 ff.

Malebranche, 151

Marcus Aurehus, 153

Marcellus, 224

Maresius, 297

Maritain, J., 129

Melanchthon, 11, 55, 91, 92, 95, 205

Miiller, 130, 346

Nietzsche, 151
Nitsch-Stephan, 89 (n. i)
Nygren, Anders, 98, 185 {n. 5), 201,
203, 240

Oettingen, v., 92, 112, 131, 203, 288

(«. i), 300
Origen, 91, 95, 104, 154, 201, 224,

244, 267, 295, 334 ff., 352
Otinger, F. C, 353
Otto, R., 157, 163, 166 {n. 2)

Pascal, 8, 99, 103, 242

Pattison, Pringle, 146 {n. i)

Paul, the Apostle, 11, 20, 29, 32, 46,

68, 73, loi. no, 216, 284, 301,

328 ff.
Paul of Samosata, 221 {n. i)
Pfaff, 90
Pfleiderer, 91
Philo, 89
Plato, 129, 136, 147 (n. 2), 152, 160 ff.,

183 (n. i), 185, 201, 241, 266,

279 {n. I). 304
Polanus, 204

Quell, 310 {n. 3)

Quenstedt, 204, 241, 294, 297

Radbertus, 94
Ratramnus, 94, 341
Rickert, 63 {n. 2)
Ritschl, 106, III, 243, 301
Rothe, 297 ff.

Schlatter, A., 92, 96, loi, 112, 113,

203
Schleiermacher, 5 (n. i), 90, 92, 96,

167, 249, 250, 262, 264, 297, 346,

353
Schlink, 168 {n. i)
Schmidt, K. L., 37 (n. 2)
Schmidt, W., 267 {n. 4)
Schrenk, G., 276 (n. 5), 302
Schweitzer, Albert, 207 (n. i), 211

{n. 4)
Schweizer, A., 321 {n. 2), 346
Scotus, Duns, 104, 249, 295, 342, 352
Seneca, 153, 322
Spencer, H., 180
Spinoza, 143, 183 (n. 3), 241
Spooner, 196 (n. i)
Strauss, 139, 294

Tertullian, 94, 108
Thales, 152
Thomasius, 92, 112
Troeltsch, E., 92 (n. i)

Uhlhorn, 200

Wegscheider, 162
Westermarck, 196 {n. i), 200
WoUeb, 306
Wyclif, 342

Zarathustra, 279 {n. i)
Zeller, 152
Zeus, 160, 183, 207
Zockler, 99 (n. i)

Zwingli, II, 67, 81, 82, 94, 109, 203,
249, 296, 321 ff.

358

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

Genesis

i: I

143

i: Iff.

307

i:26ff.

135

2: 18 £f.

257

3:8

257

6: 13 ff.

274

11:5

257

17: I

252

18: 27

162

Exodus

3:8

218

3: 14

120, 128,

129

4: 21

327

i9:5fi.

194

20: 2

137

20: 5

160

33: 19

119

Leviticus

19: 18

196

Numbers

6: 25

268

Deuteronomy

4: 20

310

6:4

137, 212

6:7ff.

184

7: 6fE.

310

7:6

319

14:2

310

Judges

11: 23 ff.

119

13: 18

117

I Samuel

15: II

268

26: 19

119

26: 23

277

I Kings

8:27

258

2 Kings

3: 27

119

Job

12: 13

283

34: 29

268

37: 16

263

38: 33

263

143

Psalms

i: 5

276

2:7

209

18: 44

263

31: 2

275

31: 16

270

33: 9

252

34: 10

164

36: 10

145

50: 15

124

Psalms — continued

Jeremiah

72: 2

277

3: 4

184

72: 19

161,

163, 286

3: 12

268

89: 6

164

3: i9ff-

184, 194

90: 4

270

4: I

184

90: 9

304

5: 12

310

92: 13

276

7:4

310

102: 27

143

7:23

194

103: 13

208

10: 12

283

104: 19

263

12: 7ff.

184

104: 24

283

18: 6

189, 329

112: 4

276

23: 29

115: 3

252,

258

29: II

263

123: I

258

31: 31 ff-

194

138: 2

272

42: 10

268

139

261,

298

139: 16

263,

305

Ezekiel

145: 17

275

16: 4ff.

194

147: 4

282

34: 23 ff.
36: 26

194
194

Proverbs

1:7

163

Daniel

3: 19

283

12: I

263

12: 10

276

16: 4

327

Hosea

21: 26

276

i: 9

272

Isa

iah
I ff.

194

2: 20
4:6

5: I2ff.

272
272
319

5
5
6
6

5
16

3
5

10
16

272
158,
158,
162

166

286

6: Iff.
11: 8-9
11: 9

194
190
158, 159

6
28

272,
329

327

13: 5
14: 5

194
184

145

Amos

159

2: 3

310

164

3: 2

263, 310, 319

159

7: 3

268

319

7: 6

268

160

158,

164

Habakkuk

137

2: 14

286

190

143

Zechariah

232

9:9

275

158,

159

253

Matthew

275

5: 45

193

164

5:48

288

190

6: 8

263

160

7: 12

195

319

10: 29

252

272

11: II

210

194,

284

11: 25

53: 2

288

11: 27

207

53: 5

281

12: 28

148, 210

54:8

267

12: 31

216

55:8

284

13:30

233

57: 15

159

16: 16 ff.

19, 209

60: 3

319

16: 17

64: 7

268

18: 12

211

65: Iff.

184

18: 20

26, 258

258

19: 26

252

359

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

Matthew-

-cont

inue

John — continued

Romans — continued

20: 28

189,

210,

281

17: II ff.

119,

157,

191

327

21: 37

211

17: 22

190

274, 329, 330

22: 14

326,

341

17: 23

276

22: 37 ff.

197

17: 24

214,

286,

308

330

24: 35

252

18: 36

178

327

330

19: II

233

327

25: 12

263

283, 284

25: 34

307,

327

Acts

iff.

233

25: 41

233,

327

1:8

163

28: 19

82, 207, 217

i: 16

327

213

28: 20

26, 258

2: 42

3: 21

352

I Corinthians

Mark

4: 31

216

164

13: 32

263

8: 39
10: 44

216
216

I
I

7
9

20, 267
272

Luke

15: 18

263

i: 37

252

17: 24

258

21 ff.

284

12:49

210,

268

17: 28

175

230

18: Iff.

269

17: 31

278

284

19:9

211

19: 2 ff.

216

267

19: 10

184,

211

Romans

8
16 ff.

233
30

John

i: 2

326

191

i: Iff.

252

i: 5

311

190

i: I

308

i: i6ff.

301

264

i: 2

213

i: 17

41, 276

213

i: 9

283

i: 19

121,

134

107

i: 11-12

260

i: 20

137,

177

i: 12

164,

260,

320

2: 4

274

30, 209

i: 14

16, 33, 206, 208,

2: 5

4ff.

217

209,

213

3: 19

277

216

126

3: 21 ff.

213,

272,

274,

199

206,

214

276,

301

187,

206,

320

311

20, 287

16-18

206

25 ff.

281

287

214

194,

275,

281

169,

231,

327

2 Corinthians

8ff.

228

274

208

145

307

18 ff.

274

143,

213,

232

199

213

215

213

187

216, 313

214

187,

189,

199

161, 194, 216

313

230

286

189

187

164

197

195

229

336

199

213

5ff.

312

199

286

210, 213, 218,

Iff.

189

14 ff.

196

220

213

213,

229,

298

3ff.

280

276

216

311

9„

213

210

189

10-

4ff.

lOI

216

208

loff.

216

207, 217

189

30,207,215,311

313

30, 216

Galatians

216

287

20, 29, 209

216

213,

215

216

215

14 ff.

30,:

I, 2]

28 ff.

326

281

207

213,

312

281

I ff.

207

206,

213,

214

30, 207

165

197,

336

215

214,

286

19-22

85, 198

119

189,

215

161, 277

360

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

I Peter

Ephesians

Colossiatu

- — continued

i: 3

208

2: 2

207

i: 4

228, 307, 313

2: 9

137, 213

i: 5

326

2: 14

i: 5-II

311

2: 15

194

i:6

232

3: 12

164

i: 9

233. 303

i: 9-1 1

304

I Thessalonians

i: II

312

i: 10

230

i: 2off.

233

2: 7ff.

195

2:3
2: 10

327
312, 313

2 Thessalonians

2: 20

1:7

2: 22

215

2: 13

191

3: 9
3: 10

308
283

I Timothy

3: 14

163 ■

i: II

2»7

3: 19

233

2: 3-4
2: 6

334
281

4: 15
4: 28
4: 30

213
326
216

6: 15
6: 16

252, 287
143, 162

2 Timothy

Philippians

2: 19

263

2: 6

29, 213

2: 21

327

2: 9

212

3:16

107

2: 10 ff.

161, 163

Ti^MS

Colossians

2: 14

190

1:3

184

Hebrews

i: 13

212, 215, 230,

1: 2

232, 267

308, 309

i: 10

232

i: 15

213

11:3

307

i: 16

213, 214

12: 29

230

i: 15-17 308

i: 17

232, 265

James

1:27

215, 287

4:8

260

I : I

319

i: 2

215, 217, 311

i: 15

215

i: 17

277

i: 18

190, 281

i: 20

307

2: 4

313

2: 6

313

2: 8

327

2: 9

164, 312

3: 19

320

5: I

287

I John

i: I

i: 3

195

i: 9

274, 275

2: 21

214

2: 23

214

4:8

185

4: 10

184

4: 16

185

4: 19

193

5:7

205

Revelation

i: 6

287

i: 8

252

2:7

216

2: 21

267

14: I

207

17:8

328

19: 13

21: 27

263

361

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